For the past few months, the NBA’s impending new national TV rights deal has lingered as a secondary storyline underneath the Playoffs, Draft, and beginning of the offseason. Late last week, the league’s Board of Governors approved a new 11-year, $76 billion rights deal that would keep ESPN as their lead partner but add NBC and Amazon as new partners, bringing NBA games to national TV every night of the week.
The odd network out was TNT, which initially balked at the NBA’s asking price during the exclusive negotiating window and was not willing to meet the league’s asking price after. However, they have a matching rights clause in their current deal, which meant after the NBA approved the deal, it got sent back to TNT Sports and Warner Bros. Discovery to give them a chance to match. On Monday, TNT Sports released a statement confirming they were matching one of the deals, with The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand bringing word it will indeed be the Amazon package.
“We’re proud of how we have delivered for basketball fans by providing best-in-class coverage throughout our four-decade partnership with the NBA. In an effort to continue our long-standing partnership, during both exclusive and non-exclusive negotiation periods, we acted in good faith to present strong bids that were fair to both parties.
Regrettably, the league notified us of its intention to accept other offers for the games in our current rights package, leaving us to proceed under the matching rights provision, which is an integral part of our current agreement and the rights we have paid for under it.
We have reviewed the offers and matched one of them. This will allow fans to keep enjoying our unparalleled coverage, including the best live game productions in the industry and our iconic studio shows and talent, while building on our proven 40-year commitment for many more years.
Our matching paperwork was submitted to the league today. We look forward to the NBA executing our new contract.”
Now it’s up to the NBA whether they accept TNT’s match or if they try to reject it and battle it out in the courts. The league has made it clear they want to get in with a streamer in this new rights package, and now it could come down to what is legally defined as a matching offer. Financially, TNT can match, but the NBA could posit that they cannot match what Amazon can provide the league. According to Marchand, the league plans to decline the package to keep Amazon around and could try to work out a different deal with TNT or a settlement.
While TNT has the contractual right to match an offer, per its current contract, the NBA is expected to decline the network’s right to take the agreed-upon Amazon package, sources briefed on the NBA’s plans said. The league’s preference is to honor the $1.8 billion per year contract it agreed to with Amazon.
We’ll find out soon if this becomes a court battle of semantics or if the two sides can work out a separate fourth deal — which would then offer fans some hope that Charles Barkley will do an about face on his retirement announcement and stick around with Inside the NBA long-term.