The NBA Board of Governors is expected to approve its new 11-year media rights package this week at meetings in Las Vegas, starting the clock on Warner Bros. Discovery’s five-day window to match the offer. If WBD tries to use its matching rights, it is reportedly expected to target Amazon Prime Video’s “C” package.
But many expect WBD to ultimately throw in the towel and allow TNT to lose NBA games after more than two decades. And if that happens, Colin Cowherd believes the average sports fan will never watch TNT again.
In the latest episode of The Colin Cowherd Podcast, the FS1 host explained that while it’s an open secret that big media companies lose money on sports rights deals in a vacuum, TNT faces an existential threat if it no longer airs the NBA.
“If you let the NBA go, I can just tell you I’ll never watch TNT again,” Cowherd said.
Even among the sports WBD already broadcasts, Cowherd highlighted that they do not consistently have the premier games for any league. TNT airs NHL games, but only has the Stanley Cup Final every second season (ABC/ESPN have it the other years). TNT airs the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, but CBS alternates broadcasting the Final Four with TBS, another WBD network. And TBS airs MLB playoffs, but only up to a league championship series each year. Of course, TNT does not air the NBA Finals, either.
“If you ran TNT, would you rather sign the deal, keep me as a consumer, though you lose money on the deal, but you keep me watching your shoulder programming … seeing all sorts of ads, promotions for other shows during your NBA coverage, or lose me completely as a consumer. That’s the decision TNT has.”
Cowherd also noted that TNT would need less secondary investment to simply keep NBA rights compared with NBCUniversal and Amazon, who now need to hire production crews and talent while investing significant dollars into marketing the fact that they now will air NBA games.
“All these networks are going to lose money on the NBA,” Cowherd said. “But for TNT, they don’t have me for anything other than (the NBA). And if they don’t sign it, they lose me completely.”
While Cowherd highlighted “shows” that TNT might direct its audience toward, weekly cable television is not exactly booming business anymore. The more modern analogy might be what WBD loses by not funneling consumers toward its Max streaming platform, movies like Dune: Part Two, or other sports offerings on TBS and TruTV.
Another major factor is the bottom line revenue that comes from what carriage fees WBD can negotiate for TNT with cable distributors. Without the NBA, TNT loses value for Comcast, DirecTV and their competitors.
WBD has attempted to save face by stocking TNT with new deals for simulcasts of the College Football Playoff and the French Open. More sports deals will likely follow.
But unless something miraculous changes at the 11th hour, Cowherd is potentially correct that WBD risks tanking TNT and its cable business entirely by losing NBA games, Inside the NBA and its sports identity.