What constitutes a ‘match’ may emerge as the deciding factor in whether Warner Bros. Discovery or Comcast ends up with the NBA’s third and final rights package.
The NBA does not believe that Warner Bros. Discovery can sufficiently match Comcast’s $2.5 billion/year bid for the league’s remaining rights package on price alone, Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal reported Thursday. Per the report, the league believes that Comcast’s NBC broadcast network and regional sports networks are elements “that WBD cannot replicate.” (It is not clear how the Comcast RSNs play into the company’s bid.)
In order to retain the rights, WBD would thus have to pay in excess of the $2.5 billion total, potentially as much as $2.8 billion per year — more than ESPN would pay for its “A” package that includes the NBA Finals ($2.6B/year) and a full billion more than Amazon would pay for its “C” package.
WBD believes that it merely has to meet NBC’s price in order to match and retain its package, and potentially could pursue legal remedies to determine exactly what the company’s matching rights entail.
The picture painted by the report is that the NBA prefers to move forward with Comcast and is in the position of trying to let WBD down easy.
As has been previously reported, Comcast would carry Sunday night NBA games on the NBC broadcast network following the NFL season. Newly reported is that Comcast could also pick up the Friday night regular season games ceded by ESPN.
In contrast to previous reporting by John Ourand of Puck, Friend indicated that the “B” package would include a conference final every year, rather than every-other-year. Ourand reported this week that the winner of the “B” package would alternate a conference final with Amazon, but per Friend, Amazon’s “C” package only includes first round playoff games.
