TNT recordsdata lawsuit towards NBA after shedding broadcast rights

TNTbelow its mother or father firm Warner Bros. discoveredfiled a lawsuit this Friday towards the NBA as a consequence of an equal rights clause in his earlier tv contract. This comes after the league introduced just a few days in the past that it might finish its decades-old partnership with the tv firm in favor of latest rights agreements with Amazon, NBC, and ESPN.

“TNT sports activities operations stated in a press release, ‘Regardless of the NBA’s unacceptable rejection of our third-party supply, we now have taken authorized motion to implement our rights.’

The assertion continued: “We strongly consider that this isn’t solely our contractual proper, but additionally the perfect factor for followers who need to proceed to look at our industry-leading NBA content material.” with the selection and suppleness we provide by our extensively distributed WBD video distribution platforms, together with TNT and Max.”

What was the NBA’s response to the lawsuit filed by Warner Bros. Discovery, the mother or father firm of TNT?

The sports activities league responded that “Warner Bros. claims Discovery is baseless and our attorneys will handle them.”

Earlier this week, the NBA introduced it might stick with ESPN/ABC and signal new offers with Amazon and NBC beginning on the finish of 2025. On the coronary heart of the dispute are the ” back-to-back rights,” a standard clause in tv rights agreements, the place a rights holder has the chance to match any competing supply of a contract.

Though the request is essentially confidential, WBD believes TNT has the potential to match Amazon’s rights portfolio.

On the identical time, the NBA argues that WBD can not match Amazon, partly as a result of the WBD ‘Max’ streaming platform has about half of the worldwide attain of Amazon’s Prime Video.

Different factors mentioned by the NBA embrace Amazon’s rights bundle being declared unique for streaming, whereas the cope with WBD would come with the fitting to broadcast video games on each Max and TNT.

“The most recent proposal from Warner Bros. Discovery matches the phrases of Amazon Prime Video’s supply, so we now have reached a long-term settlement with Amazon,” the NBA stated in a press release earlier this week.