Full quote:
“The first thing is they came out and said, ‘We didn’t need the NBA.’ So, I think that probably pissed Adam [Silver] off,” Barkley admitted. “I don’t know that. But when we merged, that’s the first thing our boss said, ‘We don’t need the NBA.’ Well, he don’t need it. But me, Kenny, Shaq, Ernie and the rest of the people who work there, we need it. It just sucks right now.”
Early in his tenure as Warner Bros. Discovery president and CEO, David Zaslav said “We don’t have to have the NBA.” Less than two years later, Zaslav is rapidly approaching life without the NBA on TNT as NBA commissioner Adam Silver seems hellbent on moving the league’s “B” package of games to NBC. Zaslav is scrambling to retain the NBA by using the network’s “matching rights” clause, but as Barkley notes, they may have screwed these negotiations up beyond repair.
by smlngb
43 Comments
Lol
Zaslav is more excited about the tax break he can get when B/R sports fails horribly
Chuck, Kenny, Shaq and probably Ernie will be fine. It’s everyone behind the scenes who are gonna get hurt most and Zaslav doesn’t give a shit.
Zaslav has been doing this for years, and its the reason HBO got rid of boxing, it didn’t “bring in new customers”
Zaslav putting together an absolutely generational run of pissing important stakeholders off for no reason at all.
HOF level shit, haha.
Zaslav doesn’t understand you also have to retain customers. He might think they just tune in and watch anything because of brand loyalty or out of the goodness of their heart or some crap lol
if I were an exec running, let’s say, Sling, and I see TNT losing NBA coverage, I am frothing at the mouth to cut them from my packages so I can save some money. politics aside, judging on its merits, it was just a massive miscalculation from Zaslav. that sports package looks feeble af without the NBA.
Never should’ve given Silver bulletin board material
David Zaslav is one of the worst CEO’s in the industry. Literally, none of his big ideas have had good outcomes. All of them have been market failures or straight-up detrimental to the business. Not even talking about as a person. As a business man he is complete dogshit
Does anybody really think Adam Silver would let petty vindictiveness cost the league money? If TNT was the best deal, the NBA would re-sign with TNT.
Zaslav is cheap as fuck, that’s the problem, not some random quote from years ago.
Feels like the sports bundle service Disney, Warner, and Fox are starting seems a lot less valuable if TNT loses the NBA.
I’m pretty sure the only thing Silver cares about is the money. He would give all NBA rights to China if it meant their offer is double the size to what ESPN is paying.
Maybe but at the end of the day it all comes down to the dollars. He could have called Silver an alien from Mars Attacks! and if they outbid NBC, Silver would have lived with it.
i had never heard of this zaslav guy til they showed him at the knicks game and now i just think he’s pre-tape leak donald sterling 😂
What does tnt have besides the nba? Serious question
Is Chuck trying to get out if the last year of his deal? He’s unloading on management lol
As it should
Everything Zaslav touches turns to shit. The guy is fucking horrible.
Zaslav is the worst thing to ever happen to television
You know what pissed Silver off? Zaslav offering way below market value. Zaslav is a villain. A not very bright, made his bones in reality tv trash, villain.
Bro fuck david zazlav holy shit he actually ruined so many facets of entertainment it’s crazy
Can’t wait for NBA on NBC, Looney Tunes on CBS, DC Comics on Amazon Prime, HBO on AppleTV, and CNN on Disney+
This Zaslav guy is the type of dude who would drop corncobb tv
Did Zaslav say it while furiously masturbating to Fleabag after forcing everyone in the room to not look at him?
im pretty sure no one would disagree, so can we fire Zaslav straight into the sun? the man is good for literally nothing, whats the point of people like him. i miss venture bros.
Tnt is going to regret that decision. That’s the only thing they got going for them
David Zaslav has been terrible not just for the NBA but for many many other things. From movies, to games, to business model and the NBA, how this man is still CEO is beyond me, making a bunch of tax write offs green lighting stuff that makes no sense, and In the end he’ll have absolutely nothing to serve as Warner Bros becomes irrelevant but by then it will be to late, better to fire Zaslav now if you ask me
Turner Networks and the NBA used each other to grow and become entities they are today. In the 1980s when Turner was a fledgling superstation cable channel (TBS) they used the NBAs growing popularity to grow themselves as a major sports broadcasting player. Turner started their relationship with the NBA broadcasting Atlanta Hawks games. This expanded into a national contract by the late 80s. The NBA was sort of a fledgling league as well and used the expansion of cable to broaden its reach. Turner hasn’t been the same company since the AOL Time Warner merger. Subsequent mergers have made the decision making at Turner further from Atlanta. Turner is just a small piece of a conglomerate. The conglomerate has no idea what Turner Networks needs as programming.
It will be a sad day when Turner no longer broadcast NBA games.
Zaslav fucking blows. Dude just loves ruining anything and everything I like.
Fuck Zaslav. ruined the dceu with his stupid decisions and now might end up costing us inside the NBA too. He needs to be fired, hes a horrible CEO who absolutely does not care about the human aspect of the company and needs to go.
Every year, we as a society should get to pick one person to exile to Antarctica
Isn’t this the guy that got rid of the best entertainment brand ever in HBO? This guy?
Obviously I’m not Adam Silver and cannot read his mind. But if I’m running a business, I’d give a friend a discount. I’d give a good, long term business partner a discount. If you claim you don’t need me, OK then, straight business. I’m not going to refuse to do business with you, but you just lost that discount.
It’s like the dude got caught up in his own mental game that only exist in his mind. “Hey, if I act like we don’t need them, they will come begging for us.” What a fucking idiot. Dude played checker thinking he is playing chess when the game is poker.
The arrogance of some of these jackasses and the jealousy as well speaks volumes about their outright stupidity. They see a league full of athletes that are all millionaire and their fragile ego acts as if they can find replacements. I hope this clown is exited from all aspects of decision making roles after TNT falls on its face.
adam silver is barely rob manfred level as a commish
Tbh if the TNT crew disbands to look at other possibilities,I don’t see a program Shaq goes to where he isn’t being constantly challenged by smarter players and his “g14 classification” doesn’t cut it when making commentary.
Nobody had any clue what this guys name is until now and it’s only because he’s ruining the best show in all of sports broadcasting.
Just an unbelievably stupid business decision.
Espn doubled their previous offer before any bidding began. It just comes down to numbers, tnt actually needed to offer more money than nbc because of they’re structure. TNT had to pay close to triple its previous deal for less coverage (to be gouged again later) or lose its best product entirely and then sue.
“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 three choices: pass on the NBA, drastically overpay for the “B” package or take the NBA to court over the definition of a match.”
Honestly, the only reason I view TNT is for NBA and March college basketball. Not interested in re-runs of “Charmed”
Zaslav probably wants to get rid of TNT/TBS and knows the NBA is the main thing keeping those expensive operations alive. He’s not dumb. His priority is to trim costs and reduce debt.
Is there anything Zaslav doesn’t want to ruin?
Zaslav is a fucking idiot. Dude is driving HBO off a cliff also.
To quote Conan “I’ll do this show in a garage or a 7-Eleven parking I don’t care.”
And we’ll watch it Chuck. Take it somewhere else.