Warner Bros. Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said Wednesday that the company is developing an app specific to TNT Sports.
“We’re working on creating our own TNT Sports app, which is going to be available as a streaming product, but importantly, also as a bundle option — internally with discovery+, not so internally anymore with HBO Max, but also open to other partners in the industry,” Wiedenfels said at the Bank of America Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference.
As part of the Warner Bros. Discovery split, TNT Sports programming will be leaving HBO Max, necessitating a new streaming platform, Wiedenfels said.
“Luis [Silberwasser] and the team are driving that hard right now, and it’s going to take a little longer than a matter of weeks, but we’ll hopefully have that ready right around the time of our separation,” Wiedenfels said. It should be noted that the company hopes to have the split completed in Q2 2026, a timeline that would align with the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs, first-half of the MLB regular season and beginning of its slate of NASCAR Cup Series races.
Wiedenfels’ comments are similar to the sentiments expressed by Matt Hong, the president of sports at Versant, which will be formed out of a spin transaction of the NBCUniversal cable networks. In an interview with Alex Sherman of CNBC over the summer, Hong expressed that the company wants to keep working and partnering with NBCUniversal and Peacock for its sports rights, but he also highlighted the freedom it will have to partner with other streaming companies.
Despite losing U.S. live game broadcast rights for the National Basketball Association, TNT Sports has in the past year added French Open tennis, Big East basketball, FIFA Club World Cup games and Unrivaled Basketball to a portfolio that still includes NCAA March Madness and All Elite Wrestling. It has also acquired select Big 12 and College Football Playoff games via sublicense.
“[T]he most important purpose of that sports portfolio here in the U.S. … was to secure enough premium, high-value content to assure a set of continued, great partnerships with our affiliates, and we have achieved that,” Wiedenfels said. “We have worked through all of these deal renewals. That said, sports is a core part of our strategy. We’re always going to continue looking at everything that comes to the market, and in many cases, you’re going to see us say ‘No’ because you have to be incredibly disciplined in that space, but I think as Luis and the team have shown, you can be very successful with that strategy.”
As part of the spinoff, Discovery Global would retain a 20% stake in the Warner Bros. company that will contain the streaming and studio properties. Wiedenfels acknowledged that there are interested buyers in this stake and that there have been discussions surrounding selling a portion of the share or the total. In addition, he said that Discovery Global can consider selling the stake before the spinoff transaction is completed but that it would be a trade off to ensure the company receives full value.
“It’s a huge building block in this whole transaction to get an equity injection at the right valuation at an accretive multiple to help with the de-levering path, so that’s definitely going to be a priority, and again, we’ve been very clear,” Wiedenfels said. “From a tax perspective, we have a year, potentially a little longer, but let’s say a year. But we have had some interest in discussions earlier than that, and technically, we would be able to monetize part of it, all of it, whatever, before we even close the transaction.”
