Story in Variety that goes into detail about why the NBA does not want to renew with TNT under the new Warner Bros Discovery. Nothing too surprising, just confirming that the current TNT in the last 2 years under Zaslav is not the same one that the NBA has had a good relationship with since 1989. Between this and Zaslav's infamous 'we don't need the NBA' comments, sounds like even though WBD is still pushing for a 4th rump package to keep the NBA, the NBA wants a divorce.
Warner’s bid for a small package of games shows just how much its relationship with the NBA has deteriorated in recent years. While the company’s cable networks have been showing NBA games since 1989 — more than three decades — NBA executives have been focused on their interactions with Warner in the past two years, since the company was formed in 2022 after Discovery Inc. merged with the WarnerMedia unit of AT&T.
The league, according to people familiar with the matter, has not been pleased.
The NBA has been dismayed by an exodus of Warner’s top sports executives in past years, including Lenny Daniels, the former president of the company’s sports division, who left in November of 2022. He was seen as a trusted partner by NBA leaders. Tara August, the head of talent of the sports division, left in early 2023. She was followed by Tina Shah, an executive vice president who played a key role in negotiating many of the company’s sports rights deals.
Warner also laid off dozens of sports staffers as part of a bid to trim its costs and reduce its massive debt. While the move may have helped the company’s finances, one person said, it created the perception that Warner didn’t see value in investing in the production of games or its venerable “NBA on TNT” studio show. To be sure, Warner in 2022 struck new long-term deals for most of its studio hosts, including Kenny Neal, Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley.
Warner Bros. Discovery has put a premium on frugality since its launch, but NBA games have driven a lot of its revenue. All of TNT’s top broadcasts in 2023 were NBA broadcasts, according to data from Nielsen, and NBA games appear to have driven the bulk of ad sales for the cable network in the second quarter of last year. What’s more, the Warner NBA package was to play a key role in Venu, a new streaming sports joint-venture set up between Warner, Disney and Fox that is supposed to launch in the fall.
https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/warner-bros-discovery-nba-rights-package-games-1236028248/
And yeah the story did misspell Kenny Smith as Kenny Neal.
by JesusSinfulHands
29 Comments
Kenny “The Jet” Neal
League hates the Discovery merger too, understandable
And ESPN hasn’t been doing those things…?
They have had massive layoffs to the point where brand new broadcasters are doing NBA finals games. wtf?
I don’t think anyone’s been happy with their interactions with Warner since Zaslav came in.
IMO Zaslav is a horrible TV exec and if I was the NBA I wouldn’t want to be involved with him either.
He says he cares about “Content” but what does he do when he takes over a network. He guts any show that costs a lot and puts in a cheap/bottom of the barrel reality show.
He doesn’t care about the NBA b/c he can just film like 10 different versions of Naked and Afraid and hope one of them hits, low costs, low risk, high rewards.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he launches some stupid reality show called “the next hoops star” and just films random people at the YMCA playing rec leagues.
Lol join the club, NBA.
Super unpopular opinion, but I really don’t care about pre game or halftime shows. Maybe it’s because I’m broke and sail the seas, but I’m usually getting the local broadcast and zone out during halftime until the second half starts.
I think the whole 4th package is about getting TNT to not take them to court.
Zaslav is the worst CEO out of the major studios, and that says a lot.
WB/Discovery has been hemorrhaging money and Zaslav is just trying to flip it in a few years. The dude absolutely sucks.
Zaslav is the own goal king. He seems to turn everything he touches to shit.
There’s been a lot of smoke that Silver and various NBA execs were pissed when Zazlav said “they didn’t need the NBA.” Essentially they took it personally. And it wasn’t going to be a strictly $$$ thing anymore when it came to Warner’s bid
You can hate and blame Zaslav all you want for the lost of NBA on TNT and etc but the package that they received was pretty ridiculous. Paying significantly more for less coverage.
Chuck should be allowed to go off on them
Big ass San Antonio women and dirty ass water in Galveston for their final season.
Every local broadcast is better than the national. the best world is one where when a team plays a nationally televised home game, the local announcers call it
Just because a person can run a Dollar Store doesn’t mean that they can run a Saks 5th Avenue. Zaslav is out of his depth here and doesn’t realize that you can’t run TNT, HBO, etc. like Discovery or Animal Planet.
Combining Kenny Smith and Shaq into “Kenny Neal” is unquestionably hilarious
Fuck if Lebron is the GOAT, is Zaslav the worst CEO of all time?
They don’t give a shit about ESPN doing the same though I guess
Fuck Zaslav
Zaslav needs to take his golden parachute and go to his next network already
and this is despite how successful Inside the NBA remains …
Zaslav is the bizarro Midas, everything he touches turns to shit
Shaquille O’Barkley
They gone gone
Hmm…if the NBA watches its games and related content broadcast on ESPN, they probably have not been pleased with “the Worldwide Leader” for the past 2 years either.
Zaslav almost ruined Turner Classic Movies and is now on the verge of ruining Inside the NBA. These are the two best things on television in my opinion. Only history’s greatest monster could manage to ruin both TCM and Inside.
Bring back the Starters if you can get the funny Australian nerd
Meanwhile they’re happy with espn’s bullshit
It’s just a pure business decisions. I don’t know why people think otherwise, and I hope people don’t fall for the spin.
The NBA of course in terms of optics doesn’t want it to be framed that way and wants to spin it towards all these extraneous issues. If they can push the idea to NBA fans that onus was on Warner they escape any culpability for their decision.
It’s no different then teams trying to pin failed contracts on the failings of the player, and players trying to do so on the team. All done via proxies through their media connections.