Charles Barkley was right to be worried since Sports Business Journal confirms that the NBA intends to finalize negotiations with its next broadcasters next week.
From 2025/26 these are ESPN, NBC And Amazon who should share the broadcast of the Grand League.
ESPN/ABC will thus recover the first lot, with the broadcast of the Finals, a conference final, several “prime time” matches each week, WNBA matches and part of the international rights.
NBC for its part should replace NBC for the second batch, with a show “Basketball Night in America” which will take the place of the equivalent show on American football, every Sunday, at the end of the NFL season. The channel should also recover a conference final and two prime time slots per week.
Finally, Amazon for its part will obtain the third lot, with the NBA Cup, Play-In, matches from the first round of the playoffs, WNBA matches as well as international broadcasting rights.
TNT’s right to “match” in question
The three broadcasters would have to pay more than $7 billion per season, cumulatively, to broadcast the NBA, which will therefore multiply its earnings by 2.5 compared to its previous contract. The fact remains that TNT may not have said its last word, and that the company could take the matter to court. For what ? Because the previous contract gave outgoing broadcasters the right to “match” the offers of incoming broadcasters. On the TNT side, we obviously believe that we have the right to match NBC's offer.
Except that the legal terms of the contract are visibly vague, and it is not enough for the NBA for TNT to put up the same amount as NBC (2.6 billion dollars per year) for the offer to be matched.
Given that NBC, as a terrestrial channel, reaches more American households than TNT, which is a cable channel, Adam Silver and the NBA executives therefore consider that the offer of TNT, and its home- parent Warner Brother's Discovery, must be financially superior to make up the difference.
Another point to follow for French fans: international broadcasting rights negotiated by ESPN and Amazon, likely to modify the audiovisual landscape of the NBA in France and many other countries.
