Warner Bros. Discovery, which will soon see live NBA games leave its TNT cable network following a four-decade partnership, has been able to recoup at least a few perks following its settlement with the professional basketball league.
Most notably, WBD’s TNT Sports will continue to produce its iconic studio show, Inside the NBA, which starting with the 2025-26 season will now run on ESPN and ABC throughout the regular season and NBA Playoffs.
The 11-year settlement deal includes a new global license that grants WBD’s TNT Sports access to highlights for the division’s Bleacher Report digital news platform, as well as social media service House of Highlights.
While losing live game rights on TNT in the U.S., WBD will be able to carry live telecasts of NBA games in the Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), Poland and Latin America (excluding Brazil and Mexico).
As an “associated” component of the settlement, NBA partner ESPN will sublicense to WBD a slate of 13 Big 12 Conference college football games each season, as well as 15 Big 12 men’s college basketball games each season, starting with the 2025 season. (This is a boon for the Big 12, which has largely been confined to streaming on ESPN+).
The agreement continues the partnership between NBA Digital and TNT Sports for another five seasons, under which the league’s digital unit can engage WBD resources to provide promotion, production, development and sales services.
WBD will also remain a promotional partner for subscription streaming platform NBA League Pass.
The major highlight in all this is the continuation of the Emmy-winning Inside the NBA, which will still be produced out of Atlanta featuring host Ernie Johnson alongside ex-jock analysts Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal.
ESPN will continue to produce and run its own studio show, NBA Countdown, for regular season games. But the far more popular Inside the NBA will take its place for marquee regular-season matchups, as well as all post-season games.
“Together these agreements ensure fans will continue to enjoy TNT’s Inside the NBA and create tremendous value for our entire portfolio as we accelerate the growth of TNT Sports, Bleacher Report, House of Highlights and our global sports business,” WBD CEO David Zaslav said in a statement.
Zaslav and WBD sued the league in July, after the NBA signed 11-year national TV deals with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon totaling $77 billion, leaving WBD out of the party starting with the 2025-26 NBA season.
Turner Sports first became a league partner in 1984, with live NBA games first appearing on Turner’s TNT four years later.
For its latest national contract, the NBA made it a priority to include a third video-rights partner rooted in live streaming, and Amazon stepped up with an aggressive $1.8 billion-a-season offer for games on Prime Video. Amazon’s boldness was rivaled by NBCU, which ended up paying an average of $2.45 billion over 11 years for NBA rights.
Disney retained NBA rights for ESPN and ABC with a $2.6-billion-a-season bid.
Given that WBD is more than $40 billion in debt, it was understandable that Zaslav approached renewal negotiations with the league with some caution.
But the top media executive has been widely criticized for miscalculating his pre-negotiation posture, at one point declaring, “We don’t need the NBA.”
In any event, WBD ended up with little leverage while being outbid by Disney, NBCU and Amazon. But its July breach-of-contract suit against the league was well-timed, preventing the NBA from consummating $77 billion worth of business until the legal matter was cleared up.