The NBA preseason doesn’t begin till October, however followers have already got court-side seats to its authorized wrangling with Warner Bros. Discovery over the league’s media rights deal.
At this time, in response to the NBA denying Warner Bros. Discovery’s try and match Amazon’s deal for rights, WBD introduced it was taking the NBA to court docket as a result of league’s “unjustified rejection of our matching of a third-party provide.”
“We have now taken authorized motion to implement our rights,” the assertion continued. “We strongly imagine this isn’t simply our contractual proper, but additionally in one of the best curiosity of followers who need to preserve watching our industry-leading NBA content material with the selection and adaptability we provide them by our broadly distributed WBD video-first distribution platforms—together with TNT and Max.”
Now, the NBA has responded.
In a press release to ADWEEK, NBA spokesman Mike Bass mentioned, “Warner Bros. Discovery’s claims are with out advantage and our attorneys will deal with them.”
Thus, it seems that the league and WBD—regardless of remaining in a partnership for one more yr of NBA video games on WBD properties—have an extended authorized battle forward.
How we bought right here
Earlier this month, The Athletic reported that the NBA had agreed to a media rights cope with NBCU, Amazon and ESPN value roughly $76 billion over 11 years. This week, the NBA formally introduced the phrases, signaling the top of prolonged hypothesis and, seemingly, an almost four-decade relationship with WBD’s TNT Sports activities.
Since then, WBD and the NBA have gone backwards and forwards, sparring within the media, as WBD claimed it had matched Amazon’s portion of that deal, value roughly $1.8 billion per yr, based on the matching rights provision in its contract. Nonetheless, the NBA refutes that assertion.
In a press release on the league’s new partnerships, the NBA famous that its major goal in offers was to maximise attain and accessibility.
“Our new association with Amazon helps this purpose by complementing the published, cable and streaming packages which can be already a part of our new Disney and NBCUniversal preparations,” the assertion learn.
Full-court press
Regardless of the final result of the authorized battle, WBD’s curiosity within the NBA is simple to grasp.
