What a $76 Billion NBA Media Deal Means for WBD and the WNBA

Just as the NBA Finals tip-off, the league is preparing for a massive shift in its broadcast landscape.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the National Basketball Association is on the precipice of a $76 billion, 11-year media deal that would give NBC the largest stake ($2.5 billion per year for roughly 100 games, half exclusively on Peacock). Fellow newcomer Amazon would get a $1.8 billion per year share that includes regular-season games, the in-season tournament, “play-in” postseason games and a share of the conference finals.

ESPN’s $1.5 billion per year deal shrinks the number of games it airs but allows it to show games on its new sports streaming service, Venu.

However, one of ESPN’s partners in that new streaming venture—Warner Bros. Discovery—is currently out of the mix after nearly 40 years of NBA broadcasts. WBD CEO David Zaslav forecast as much during the company’s earnings call in May but noted that the long-time rightsholder still has options.

“We’re in continuing conversations with them now, and we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to reach an agreement that makes sense for both sides,” Zaslav said on the call. “Since we are in active negotiations with the league and under our current deal with the NBA, we have matching rights that allow us to match third-party offers before the NBA enters into an agreement with them.”

Wither WBD?

Though CNBC reported in late May that “Zaslav has told colleagues he believes NBCUniversal is overspending for the NBA, based on his company’s research into ratings and potential subscriber value for a subscription streaming service,” his company shows few signs that it’s willing to relinquish rights to the league entirely.

WBD put NBA on TNT host Charles Barkley on stage at its TV upfront event while pointing out to advertisers that TNT Sports reaches more than 150 million fans. Afterward, Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. advertising sales officer at WBD, told ADWEEK the NBA is a “very prominent” sports property and hailed the success of an NBA All-Star Game on TNT that immediately followed the Super Bowl.

While WBD’s sports portfolio also includes sublicensed ESPN college football bowl games, the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, NASCAR and the $1 billion ad revenue monster that is men’s college basketball March Madness, Steinlauf included the NBA as one of the drivers of its Venu sports streaming venture with ESPN and Fox.

“On some nights, our sports properties have reached as much as 60% of the entire linear audience, which speaks to the power of our sports portfolio,” Steinlauf told ADWEEK. “While we are working to build out our sports offerings on streaming, we have great respect for the 71 million homes still paying for television. As an audience, they are often wealthy, highly educated and sports fans.”

Time will tell if Zaslav’s company can match a rival package or if the league creates another NBA option for WBD.

A changing game

The new deals arrive at a time when the NBA is drawing more sponsorship interest than ever. According to SponsorUnited data, NBA team sponsorship revenue rose to $1.5 billion this past season. That’s up 7% from a year earlier and 77% from during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The debut of the in-season tournament alone brought in 58 brands, with 13 sponsoring the finals in Las Vegas. It drew Emirates as a sponsor for future NBA Cup installments, with the league further expanding its global reach by attracting brands to matchups in Paris, Mexico City and Abu Dhabi. 

“The NBA’s global influence is arguably at its peak, with the league leveraging this prominence through innovative events and fresh opportunities for brand affiliations,” said Bob Lynch, founder and CEO of SponsorUnited. 

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Meanwhile, there’s more to NBA media deals than just NBA access. All of those new deals include rights to WNBA broadcasts that were seeing increased viewership even before the arrival of Caitlin Clark and the 2024 rookie class.

Mark Zamuner, president of media agency Juice Media, noted that the fragmentation of media deals like the NBA’s ultimately creates a better, more global market for content producers and is lucrative for the league—which would increase its rights fees 2.5 times from its last deal if this estimate holds. But he also pointed out that recent growth in women’s sports highlighted even greater potential for broadcasters, advertisers and viewers.

“To start to see the value generation of women’s sports and the fact that it’s drawing audiences like that—that is nothing but greatness to see,” Zamuner said. “To have those long-term lockups and value generation, especially when consumers now can choose what they want to watch when they want to watch it in an unencumbered fashion … that is a great value upside.”