NEW YORK — The NBA is formalizing written contracts with Disney, NBC and Amazon, with sources calling it the final stage of media rights negotiations that may inevitably lead incumbent Warner Bros. Discovery to take legal action.
Industry sources believe ESPN will ultimately pay $2.8B annually — though other industry sources insist it is still an earlier reported $2.6B — for the league’s “A” package, which includes the NBA Finals, a conference final, weekly primetime games, the WNBA and likely shared international rights. NBC’s proposed “B” package is believed to be worth between $2.5B and $2.6B annually and would probably include a “Basketball Night in America” or “Sunday Night Basketball” following the NFL season, a total of two primetime windows a week, conference semifinals and a conference final. Amazon’s deal is believed to be worth between $1.8B and $2B and would likely include the Emirates In-Season Tournament, the SoFi Play-In Tournament, first-round playoff games, the WNBA and international rights.
The final tweaks — which sources said have been fluid and changing almost every other day — could be finalized within the next week or two, at which time sources said all three networks will go to their respective leadership groups to have their contracts approved. At that point, sources said the league will take NBC’s contract to WBD to see if WBD CEO David Zaslav is able to match it in “total value.”
Considering WBD is $40B in debt and does not have the over-the-air infrastructure of NBC, sources believe WBD would need to pay more than $2.6B to match the deal and that NBC’s overall bid could be structured in a way (for example, multiple weekly over-the-air games) that makes it virtually impossible for WBD to equal. Sources said Zaslav would then essentially have four choices: pass on the NBA, drastically overpay for the “B” package, convince the NBA to grant them a fourth smaller one-night-a-week package or take the NBA to court over the definition of a match.
A look at how the NCAA and Power 5 will pay athletes directly; MLB’s attendance and ratings numbers up; Tanenbaum’s vision for Toronto’s WNBA franchise and WBD Sports to air some CFP games in sublicense agreement.
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