Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery looks to be on hold until March at the earliest.
The multi-state lawsuit seeking to block Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery will go to trial March 2-19 of next year, the judge overseeing the case said Tuesday, meaning that barring a settlement, the merger will not close for at least seven more months at the earliest. Paramount said last month that it would not move forward with any attempt to close the deal until either the case was resolved or until June 1 of next year, whichever date came first.
Assuming no settlement, the trial date locks in the status quo at Paramount’s CBS Sports and WBD’s TNT Sports for nearly all of the coming college basketball season, plus the majority of the NHL season. There has been speculation as to whether a combined Paramount-WBD entity would elevate certain TNT Sports properties to the CBS broadcast network, but it is unlikely that any merger could be resolved in enough time to — for example — shift next year’s Stanley Cup Final from TNT (if that would even be contractually possible).
Sports has hardly come up in the discussion of the merger, which has primarily generated headlines for its potential impact on film production and on television news. Paramount CEO David Ellison said in a New York Times opinion piece Tuesday that he believes the legal challenge to the merger has to do with the company’s potential acquisition of CNN.
But while sports is under-the-radar, the success or failure of the merger has significant implications for the industry. A successful merger would combine two separate sports divisions, creating what is on paper a strong combined portfolio (albeit one with several soon-to-expire deals) and in all likelihood resulting in the end of TNT Sports. A failed merger would leave both CBS Sports and TNT Sports on uncertain ground.
