After a months-long legal battle to enforce what it considered to be a contractual obligation to outbid Amazon and others for a package of National Basketball Association (NBA) games last year, the chief executive of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) now says the company is better off without live basketball.
Speaking at an investor conference this week, WBD CEO David Zaslav said the deal that the media giant ultimately forged with the NBA — an 11-year agreement that covers NBA highlights for its “Inside the NBA” show and distribution rights to some games in overseas markets — was the right approach.
“We’re really happy that we’re back in business with the NBA, and that deal is really going to work for us,” Zaslav said. “We have House of Highlights for the next 11 years globally, and we think that’s going to be a place that’s growing pretty significantly.”
Zaslav reassured investors that most young sports fans aren’t interested in watching a live game from start to finish, but instead wanted highlights of key moments from the events.
“A lot of young generations don’t want to watch the whole game,” he asserted. “They want to go to one place. It’s almost like a RedZone for basketball, and so we think that’s a great growth engine.”
Whether WBD is actually building a RedZone-like whip-around channel for the NBA is unknown at this time. The company will conclude its two-decade run as a live broadcaster of NBA games in the United States at the end of the current season, after which Amazon and Comcast’s NBC Universal will begin broadcasting live basketball, starting in the fall. Amazon’s package of games includes an agreement that allows it to produce shoulder programming, including a whip-around channel that offers live looks into simultaneous games in progress.
WBD began moving on from the NBA last year, even before its lawsuit with the league was settled. The company has forged agreements with college sports conferences to air football and basketball games, continues to be one-half of the rightsholder to the NCAA’s March Madness, will continue airing the Major League Baseball (MLB) playoff games for the next few years.
The company has also inked deals with NASCAR, the National Hockey League (NHL), All Elite Wrestling, the French Open tennis tournament and the U.S. men’s and women’s national soccer teams, among others.
