Warner Bros. Discovery filed a lawsuit against the National Basketball Association to keep its relationship with the league in broadcasting games.
The NBA rejected WBD’s bid to continue broadcasting games, instead reaching agreements with Disney, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Amazon on a media rights package worth about $77 billion. The rejection ended a four-decade relationship between the league and Turner Sports.
“Given the NBA’s unjustified rejection of our matching of a third-party offer, we have taken legal action to enforce our rights,” TNT Sports said in a statement. “We strongly believe this is not just our contractual right, but also in the best interest of fans who want to keep watching our industry-leading NBA content with the choice and flexibility we offer them through our widely distributed WBD video-first distribution platforms – including TNT and Max.”
Warner Bros. Discovery said their bid worth $1.8 billion per year was the same as Amazon’s, but the league instead approved the streaming services bid.
“Warner Bros. Discovery’s claims are without merit and our lawyers will address them,’ NBA spokesman Mike Bass said.
In rejecting the claim, the league pointed to this clause in a matching rights agreement from a decade ago.
“In the event that an incumbent matches a third party offer that provides for the exercise of game rights via any specific form of combined audio and video distribution, such incumbent shall have the right and obligation to exercise such game rights only via the specified form of combined audio and video distribution (e.g. if the specific form of combined audio and video distribution is internet distribution, a matching incumbent may not exercise such games rights via television distribution).’