TNT Sports hopes the cultural relevance and popularity of its National Basketball Association (NBA) coverage will help it renew its domestic media rights agreement with the league.
The cable network, now part of the Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) media empire, currently reportedly shares the league’s national broadcasts with ESPN in a deal worth a total of $2.6 billion annually. ing.
These deals, signed in 2014, run until the end of the 2024/25 season, with the incumbent team’s exclusive negotiating period reportedly expiring in April next year.
Live games are the crown jewel of TNT’s coverage, but the station’s pregame, halftime and postgame shows, Inside the NBA, are the best in the U.S. since the network began airing the NBA in 1988. has become one of the most popular shows in sports entertainment. .
Hosted by host Ernie Johnson and former players Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith, the 17-time Sports Emmy Award-winning show features game analysis, unpredictability, The compatibility between the panels has been highly praised.
Craig Barry, chief content officer for US-based WBD, hopes the show’s popularity and reach won’t go unnoticed by the NBA amid rumors of competition from the likes of NBC, Amazon and Apple. are doing.
In response to a question from a sports pro about whether WBD might mention Inside the NBA during ongoing negotiations, he said, “Yes.” “Who can really measure that? I’d like to think it matters. But it doesn’t matter more than the game. Nothing matters more than the team, the matchup, the players.
“But I’d like to think it’s a really nice complement to what people think is culturally relevant to this game.”
One of the markets where TNT already has a new deal with the NBA is the United Kingdom and Ireland. The broadcaster will take over coverage from rival pay-TV network Sky Sports in a multi-year deal and will cover at least nine games a week during the regular season, as well as the All-Star Game, playoffs and finals.
For midweek games, TNT in the UK gets the same feed of live games broadcast by TNT in the US, featuring the same commentary team and the network’s Inside the NBA show. However, SportsPro has learned that there are also plans for a co-produced studio show specific to the UK market, which will be rolled out next year.
The NBA deal in the UK comes after BT Sport was rebranded to TNT Sport as part of a 50:50 joint venture between BT Group and WBD. Barry said the new rights agreement gives the company the opportunity to grow the TNT brand, which already operates in the United States and Latin America, on a global scale.
“We’re in the NBA business, we’re in the global sports business,” he said. “Any time those opportunities come together and create a bigger opportunity for the company, I think that’s really interesting for us.”
This interview was part of a feature published during SportsPro broadcast week. Click here to read the full article.