Warner’s NBA Juggernaut Wobbles as Zaslav Hypes DTC

As much as talk about the impending loss of TNT’s NBA rights package was largely sidestepped during Warner Bros. Discovery’s third-quarter earnings call Thursday, the results at the cable networks segments went a long way toward underscoring why the league has been such a crucial part of the company’s programming strategy.

WBD’s global TV division generated $1.49 billion in advertising revenue on the quarter, which marked a 13% year-to-year drop, as domestic sales fell 21%. And while the third-quarter declines can be chalked up to a soft stateside ad market, the contrast with the results of the April-June quarter perhaps best demonstrates the value of the NBA property.

During the second quarter, when TNT televised 42 NBA postseason games—a slate that included the five nights of the Western Conference Finals—WBD whipped up $2.21 billion in ad revenue, or $724 million more than it earned in the subsequent, non-NBA quarter.

The same dynamic played out a year ago, as WBD cranked out $2.45 billion in ad sales during its big NBA playoff quarter, a haul that overshadowed the following July-September period to the tune of $739 million. As much as it should probably come as no surprise that the period which coincides with the NBA’s playoff push is always WBD’s strongest ad sales quarter, that annual bonanza is expected to dry up after next year, when Comcast’s NBC Sports pushes TNT out of the arena.

At the same time, the demise of WBD’s longstanding relationship with the NBA will save the company a bundle on rights fees. Under the terms of its legacy contract, WBD will pay the league more than $1.2 billion to carry its final season of pro hoops.

Last month, NBA commissioner Adam Silver suggested that the lack of a “longtime relationship with the people currently running Warner Bros. Discovery” may have contributed to the dissolution of the partnership. In other words, things may have gone in a quite different direction if former Turner Sports boss David Levy, who’d fostered a long and mutually rewarding alliance with Silver and his precursor David Stern in his three decades at the company,…

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Author : Sportico

Publish date : 2024-11-07 17:23:00

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