Tim Heath’s Post

The Varsity * The NBA is continuing to talk with Warner Bros. Discovery and NBC, but negotiations are not far enough along yet for the league to start conversations around WBD’s all-important matching rights. NBC and the NBA would have to be close to a signed deal for negotiations over those matching rights to truly commence. * Comcast and Diamond have barely spoken in the nine days since the cable operator dropped all of the Bally Sports Networks from its Xfinity cable systems. Both sides are entrenched in their positions, and it doesn't look like any deal is close. * CBS Sports’s deal with the Italian soccer league Serie A expires in a couple of weeks and the two sides are not close on a renewal. The Italian soccer league will either have to accept a much lower rights fee from CBS or find a new partner in the U.S. market. * Former Turner Sports president Lenny Daniels was considered one of the early favorites to replace Norby Williamson, but now has become a much longer shop as ESPN is not moving off its desire that the role will be based in Bristol, Conn. * Streaming, Paramount, women's sports, Spulu and sports betting were the top topics on the minds of NFL lawyers who gathered in Washington, D.C. this week. I spoke to the group on Wednesday morning about the changing media landscape, and these were the focus of most of the questions I fielded. * It looks like Netflix will wind up carrying the two NFL games scheduled for December 25, per a bevy of sources. It’s a first-of-its-kind deal, and almost certainly not the last. https://lnkd.in/eQN-tqcj

🏀 📺 We've got ourselves a showdown in the National Basketball Association (NBA), and it's not the playoffs. After not reaching a deal during its exclusive negotiating period, Warner Bros. Discovery - parent company of Turner (Turner Broadcasting System, Inc) - is in danger of losing the NBA media rights it's held for nearly 40 years to NBCUniversal, as NBC has come in with a significant offer of $2.5 billion, nearly 120% over the current agreement. The agreement puts WBD in a Catch-22. Keeping the rights would surely mean overpaying (reports are saying they'd need to come in at $2.8 billion to have a shot), and the company is already in challenging financial times. But, if it loses the rights, it drastically weakens its cable business due to being unable to maintain its carriage rights, which are among the highest out there ($3/subscriber) and generates $2.56 billion annually for the company. Decisions, decisions. In this week’s SBP, you’ll learn (with the assistance of some memes): - How the NBA is carving up its new media rights package - The “tale of the tape” between WBD and NBC - The outcomes of either scenario (and NBC's ultimate angle) - What I think the NBA will do - The ramifications this broader deal will have on the industry as a whole Check it out below! 👇 https://lnkd.in/gtizrPdY

TNT’s loss could be Charles Barkley’s gain The most-coveted NBA free agent in 2025 might be a man in his 60s known more for his opinions on churros than anything he did on the court. Inside the NBA stalwart Charles Barkley could command a contract worth as much as $20 million per year on the open market, per FOS, if TNT’s broadcast partnership with the NBA is not renewed after next season. That would put the man with the worst golf swing on TV in the same lucrative company as fellow athletes-turned-broadcasters Tony Romo (10 years, $180 million from CBS) and Tom Brady (10 years, $375 million from Fox). TNT isn’t benched yet. Amazon and Disney have frameworks in place for partial broadcast rights, with NBC the front-runner to be the third and final partner, bringing the total value of the 11-year deal to ~$76 billion, according to Sports Business Journal. Normally, TNT parent company Warner Bros. Discovery would be able to match NBC’s offer, but NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is requiring a higher bid from WBD, since NBC can offer more prime-time broadcast windows and boasts regional sports networks that WBD can’t equal.

Interesting details coming out for the NBA package A, B and C media partners… all this will lead to superstar players earning $60m, $70m and $80m per year on their super max contracts! Check out the article

The NBA media deal negotiations are a fascinating insight into what the leagues are looking for in a media deal as the world continually gets more digital. Linear television and who can get the most people no longer appear to be the primary focus of these deals, especially the NBA. This article lays out why Comcast is such an important and interesting player in this battle for the final spot. Instead, the focus is now on collecting as much data on the consumer as possible. That is what streaming services provide. The NFL got tons of data from the TNF deal and will continue getting data from the wild card game on Peacock. This data is worth more than a normal person may think on the business level. Amazon and ESPN/Disney already appear to have deals in place for the next NBA media deal, so it is between WB Discovery/TNT and Comcast/NBC/Peacock. TNT is the traditional broadcaster who, while having the streaming service, does not have the financial power or the data-gathering of Comcast/NBC/Peacock. The latter, meanwhile, has a greater ability to collect data, has more money and is much more stable in terms of ownership. The results of this WB Discovery vs Comcast war will showcase where the future of sports broadcasting is heading. Keep your eyes out for what happens.

The NBA is about to sign a new, lucrative NBA media rights deal worth $76 billion. This is a game changer for player salaries due to the fact that players are entitled to 50% of league revenues, per the CBA agreement. With more money flowing into the league, the salary cap rises, enabling teams to offer higher contracts to their players. This not only benefits star players with mega deals but also improves the earnings potential for role players and rookies. Essentially, a bigger media rights deal translates into a wealthier league, which means richer contracts, better player compensation and more financial security for athletes across the board. Moreover, higher player salaries contribute to the overall growth and popularity of the NBA. This will allow them to continue attracting top talent globally, thus increasing the game’s reach. This also means players have more borrowing power through the Aliya Sports Finance Fund, where we provide alternative financing solutions to professional athletes. The future of sports is bright. #nba #media #growth #sportsfinance

The Varsity * Look for Charter and Paramount to sign short-term extension today, which is a positive harbinger that a deal is in sight. Paramount will make its P+ ad-supported tier available to Charter basic subscribers. Charter has a similar arrangement with Disney and D+.  * DirecTV agreed to Diamond's "glide path" strategy that will migrate the Bally Sports RSN's to a digital tier over the next couple of years. Diamond's Comcast deal ends today and unless they agree to a long-term extension, it’s possible that the Bally Sports R.S.N.s will be dark on Comcast systems on Wednesday. And if Diamond is unable to work out a “glide path” deal with Comcast, it’s unlikely that the company will exit bankruptcy. * One of the biggest questions in the NBA rights auction centers on WBD’s matching rights, and how they might be deployed. NBCU has said that if it wins a package, it will carry some NBA games on its broadcast network. WBD doesn’t have a broadcast network, and the company has apparently not reached out to other broadcasters about a potential joint bid. * The NFL is negotiating to take an equity investment in ESPN, but talks have not progressed much in the past couple of months. ESPN is also talking to the NBA, MLB, and NHL, along with major technology companies and telecom players. * RIP Tom Phillips, a man who ran a newsletter company in suburban Maryland that hired me as a young reporter in 1994, where I first covered all aspects of the cable industry. Also, women’s sports has gotten so popular, so fast, that marketing efforts around it have been slow to catch up. The effort to usher more corporate professionalism into the women’s sports space continues on Thursday with the Sports Innovation Lab’s NewFront, in New York. Invites were sent out to more than 200 media buyers and brand marketers.

The Varsity * Sean McManus stepped down Sunday after 28 years of running CBS Sports. What were his last minutes as CBS Sports chairman like? I detail what happened inside the network's production compound during McManus' last minutes in charge. * McManus wasn't the only longtime CBS employee to retire following The Masters. The beloved announcer Verne Lundquist called his final round at Augusta National after 40 years. The kind of announcer who knows when to talk and when to stay quiet, Lunquist has always described his style as "minimalist." * Spulu - the planned sports streaming service from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery - likely will have to contend with an antitrust trial just before its launch. I have the latest on Fubo TV's plans to derail Spulu's launch. * Baseball fans hate MLB blackouts - the ones that don't allow, say, Oriole fans to stream the team's games from parts of Delaware and Pennsylvania all the way down to North Carolina. Slowly but surely, MLB has a plan to end these blackouts. It's not happening fast enough for some fans. But it is happening. * The biggest sports business story right now is obviously what the NBA will do with its media rights packages. The second biggest? It could be the UFC’s media rights, which are up in December of 2025. Plus, details on Diamond Sports who has a fundamental disagreement with DirecTV and Comcast. Sure, Diamond knows that its regional sports networks will have to go on a digital tier. But Diamond wants DirecTV and Comcast to migrate those channels over a multi-year period - a "glide path." DirecTV and Comcast want to do it right away - "a cliff path." They still have a couple of weeks to work out a deal. https://lnkd.in/eqrBbnBB

The Varsity 1. Shari Redstone's decision to kill the Skydance/RedBird Capital Partners' Paramount acquisition in the thirteenth hour has caused some angst at 345 Park Ave., where National Football League (NFL) executives are gaming out their options in the highly unlikely (but not impossible) scenario that its highly leveraged broadcast partner is unable to make its $2 billion-plus annual rights fee payments. 2. Paramount's corporate mess shouldn’t have any immediate effect on CBS Sports, which has a bunch of long-term rights deals with its biggest properties. The National Football League (NFL) deal runs through 2033 (although the league likely will use its out in 2029), and its Big Ten Conference, PGA TOUR, and UEFA deals run until 2030. Its NCAA March Madness deals end a couple of years later. Under David Berson, the CBS Sports leadership has a steady hand and a ton of experience. 3. The vibe among Warner Bros. Discovery's TNT staffers in Atlanta is, understandably, depressing. However, WBD’s moves to pick up rights to other sports (notably the French Open and College Football Playoff) should cushion some of the blow. But the real angst, sources told me, is coming from the 50 or so NBA TV staffers, who work out of WBD’s Atlanta studios and face a decidedly uncertain future. 4. Dennis Dodd's blockbuster report that the Big 12 Conference is considering selling a 15-20 percent stake in its conference to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners for between $800 million and $1 billion marks the continuation of a years-long trend in college sports. 5. RIP Jerry West: Legendary National Basketball Association (NBA) executive Rod Thorn has known Jerry West since the NBA icon was a teenager. He shares some stories of West's early days in West Virginia. The ageless John Malone's decision to take a controlling position in Formula E shows that he’s looking to re-create the magic he found in its sister racing sport. But Malone is hardly the only investor nosing around for underperforming assets in the space that appear ready to be whipped into shape. Another deal further ratifies his strategy—especially the desire to go niche. MSP Capital Ltd is backing a couple of former ESPN executives (Scott Guglielmino and Eric Johnson) who are transitioning X Games into a team sports model. https://lnkd.in/eGGmVqmY

The Varsity 1) Most of my sources believe that NBC will wind up with the NBA's third package, but I still predict that it's so important to Warner Bros. Discovery that it will pony up enough to keep it. 2) If the NBA leaves Warner Bros. Discovery for NBC, what will happens to NBA TV, which is produced in WBD's Atlanta studio? WBD's involvement with NBA TV will make it more difficult for the NBA to unwind that relationship. But given the cord-cutting trends of the past decades, it is easier to unwind it in 2024 than it would have been in 2014. 3) The NFL irritated broadcast networks last year when it allowed ABC to simulcast most of ESPN's "Monday Night Football" schedule. When the league releases next season's schedule, ABC won't have nearly as many NFL games as it had last year. 4) Now that Bally Sports RSNs are dark on Xfinity systems, both the bankrupt Diamond Sports and Comcast are looking at next steps. Diamond has to try and find a new path out of bankruptcy. And Comcast has to figure out what to do with its own RSNs, the NBC Sports-branded ones. 5) Happy trails, Jeff Pash. The NFL's top legal mind announced that he is leaving The Shield after four decades. Next to Goodell, Pash was the the most influential voice in the NFL's offices. Plus... Amazon offers Diamond Sports yet another lifeline to get out of bankruptcy by trying to pick up the league's local streaming rights. First, Amazon has to finalize its national NBA deal, which includes exclusive access to one night’s worth of regular season games per week. Amazon would carry all the games on its Prime service, most likely using production crews from the regional sports networks. Amazon also has shown a lot of interest in League Pass, though it hasn’t agreed on terms for the NBA’s out-of-market streaming package yet. https://lnkd.in/esbQ4UHX