BARKLEY AND TNT SHOULD MOVE ASIDE FOR AMAZON, IN A STREAMING CULTURE
It makes no sense for the NBA to cut old-school deals, with debt-battered Warner Bros. Discovery, when the league needs fresher broadcasting stars and should let Charles Barkley gamble his life away
Sometimes a company name is all we need to know. Warner Bros. Discovery sounds like a mixture of Doris Day and an “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking” series. The network is lost in debt and should have nothing to do with future NBA coverage.
The only reason people care is a longstanding TNT show called “Inside the NBA.” Charles Barkley is the star. Some would miss Barkley, though I would not, because 11 years of new treatment shouldn’t involve an analyst who makes fun of fat San Antonio women and sends playoff losers on fishing excursions. Let him retire after next season, as he thankfully has suggested.
Move on, Adam Silver. Who cares if WBD is matching a $1.8 billion annual package — $19.8 billion total — already signed by Amazon Prime Video? Let Barkley gamble his nights away. Accept Jeff Bezos’ deal and dump the Monday offer made by David Zaslav, CEO of WBD. As we’ve seen, streaming services are cheaper than cable. They’ve risen to 40.3 percent of TV usage in this country, crashing past cable at 27.2 percent and broadcast at 20.5 percent. WBD heaves airballs when its streaming range on Max is doubled by more than 200 million paying customers at Amazon.
So, let Zaslav spend more legal money when his first quarter closed at $43.2 billion in gross debt and he continues mass layoffs. It is not Silver’s aim to keep WBD or even Barkley happy. He must look far ahead, for a game that interests a world that otherwise looks to soccer. Please understand the viewing slots for the 2025-26 season.
ABC and ESPN will pay $2.6 billion annually to broadcast the Finals, all but one of the conference finals and slightly fewer regular-season games. ESPN launches direct-to-consumer streaming in the fall of 2025.
NBC will pay $2.5 billion annually to air Monday streaming games on Peacock and network games on Tuesdays and, after the NFL season ends, on Sundays. TNT will be replaced by NBC for full-bore playoff smotherings, including six conference finals, and All-Star Game coverage.
Amazon will pay $1.8 billion annually for six conference finals, a Thursday night package after NFL commitments, playoff and play-in games and the NBA Cup event.
For those who don’t understand streaming, pay down or find another planet. And ignore Zaslav, who can enjoy his new French Open tennis rights for $650 million.
“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,” TNT said. “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.”
Silver has no interest, other than calling attorneys who will Zas up a courtroom, though any legal work shouldn’t go far. I’ve never watched sports TV negotiations turn into such a farce. Zaslav started the mess in November 2022, when he said, “We don’t have to have the NBA.” He is getting what he wanted.
The key number is $76 billion. The league brings it home from the media, inviting new billionaires to buy into the champion Boston Celtics after the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns and Charlotte Hornets were sold to majority owners. One member of the “Inside the NBA” show wants to enter the ownership fray. “I would definitely like to,” Shaquille O’Neal said. “Whatever team is available.”
He might try Team Amazon.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.