Is TNT About to Lose the NBA?
And more importantly, are we about to lose the best studio show on television?
Did I jinx the Nuggets or what? I’m impressed with myself. I will point out, in a last-ditch attempt at self-defense, that I still love the roster they’ve constructed, but it’s striking how thoroughly they’ve been outplayed to this point.
Maybe the lesson here is that when your former GM heads to another team and makes a series of moves specifically geared towards beating the team he left, sometimes it works.
Still, most of the credit belongs to the thus-far-unstoppable rise of Anthony Edwards. I spent all that time talking about the value of patience last week, and this guy’s now making a push for his first title at the age of 22, years ahead of the usual schedule these days.
Sometimes things happen quickly. Sometimes those things are great, like a young star staking a claim as the new face of the league.
And sometimes those things are less great. Both of the first two games in this Denver-Minnesota series aired on TNT. And why wouldn’t they? As far as I’m concerned, it’s the foremost home of NBA coverage, and it has been as long as I can remember.
Try as they might (and repeatedly have), no studio show has ever quite gotten the recipe down like Inside the NBA. The casual brilliance is hard to replicate.1 It’s a combination of name recognition, chemistry, playing experience, running bits, and a willingness to be harsh (which, yes, can be a bit much at times) that just works. For my money, it’s flatly better than any NFL equivalent, much less any other sport.
But my money’s not at issue here. Theirs is. Things could still change, but right now, NBC(‘s parent company) is reportedly outbidding TNT(‘s parent company) for the rights to broadcast NBA games.2
As of Thursday, the CEO of TNT(‘s parent company) Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, told analysts:
“We are in continuing conversations with [the NBA] now and we are hopeful that we will be able to reach an agreement that makes sense for both sides. We have had a lot of time to prepare for this negotiation and we have strategies in place for the various potential outcomes.”
And Zaslav (who’s technically my former boss, too — look at me, sticking it to the man) is right on one count. They have had a lot of time. They had an exclusive 45-day negotiating window, as did ESPN(‘s parent company, Disney). Only one of them came out with a deal.
Again, nothing’s final until it’s final, but Amazon reportedly has a sizable deal in place with the league as well, leaving just one remaining slot in a three-way split. Further reporting suggests NBC(‘s parent company, Comcast) is indeed in the driver’s seat right now, with an offer of $2.5B/year that WBD will have trouble matching.
In fact, that same reporting suggests the NBA might so covet the non-cable exposure of NBC that they’re actually not even asking WBD to match it — they want them to come over the top and fork over $2.8B annually.
So, when the dust settles, TNT could very well be the odd man out, and that would suck for all of us. As you might imagine, the pre-/post-game show is a little less compelling when there’s no game. As a consequence of that, when the current broadcast deals expires at the end of next season, the Inside the NBA crew could be no more.
Ernie has been on the show since 1990. Kenny joined in 1998. Charles followed in 2000, and Shaq rounded out the crew in 2011. (They’re on a first-name basis with the country, myself included.)
All of those guys signed extensions in October 2022, leading most to believe that this deal would get done. A year and a half later, it still isn’t.
If TNT (meaning Warner Bros. Discovery) does lose the NBA, well, they’re in trouble. Without getting too far into the dumb/brilliant nuances of the cable TV business, TNT makes WBD — which, for all the noise around streaming, is still primarily a broadcast company — a lot of money. This would sting. A lot. It’s been described by many analysts far deeper in their books than I as a “must-have.”
Ernie says his deal with TNT will keep him at the network regardless. I do not consider him a replaceable part of the equation. Some might, in which case NBC or ESPN or Amazon could throw a ton of money at the other three and try to plug somebody else in in Ernie’s place, but I’m not sure I foresee that happening.
So there’s one side of this. For the NBA’s part, this is a Wolves-in-Game 2 kind of W. They’re seeking an overpay, which NBC seems open to giving them. Bartender! Some numbers for context, please!
The NBA is on a nine-year deal with its current broadcasters, the sum total of which has been worth $24 billion. This deal, if all the numbers hold — and they’ve been out there in the headlines, no doubt purposefully, as the league’s target price point for 3+ years now — will come in at $75 billion.3
That’s a staggering rise, proportionally faster than the NFL even, and all the more notable in the face of many, many criticisms: that the games didn’t have enough viewers, that the product had suffered, that the league had gone too deep on building up transient stars to the detriment of building loyal fanbases. I’ve said all of those things as if they were problems, and I still think they could be in the long run.
But I’ve already been wrong once this week, so why not twice? The league’s going to be cashing some bigger checks at the ol’ broadcast bank, right as it prepares to crown a new, young, highly marketable, dynamic, American megawatt star.4
Life is good on the hardwood. And I sure hope the TNT crew will stick around to talk it over.
Also, This
👨⚖️ Two congressmen on House Judiciary introduced the Protect The Ball Act (points for effort) this week, aiming to protect the NCAA and Power *Four conferences from legal scrutiny. If you listened to The Option, then you’ll know what I’m about to call it: an antitrust exemption! I don’t see this getting any more traction than the rest, but hey, it’s out there. Here’s your regular reminder to go listen to the pod and bone up on this stuff as the ground’s shifting beneath us:
🍊 Remind me to ask Laura who Ryan Boyajian is, because apparently the “Real Housewives of Orange County” character is also the “Associate 1” named in the feds’ criminal complaint against Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s now-extremely-former interpreter.5 Talk about a career role! Maybe the real shame is that, due to a process happening in our living room that might best be termed Housewives osmosis, I already had an inkling who this dude was. Who am I?
🏴☠️ The Pirates are calling up top pitching prospect Paul Skenes, and I’m pretty excited to see what he can contribute to the ranks of mustachioed flamethrowers. My beloved Miles Mikolas has sadly dragged down the whole group this year. Spencer Strider’s been out. Dylan Cease and Matt Carpenter grew their beards back. It’s really been Nestor Cortes’ season so far. In comes the cavalry?
ESPN did strike oil with this year’s women’s college basketball crew — Elle Duncan, Chiney Ogwumike, and Andraya Carter were fantastic together, as noted by many others — but the chemistry remains hard to get right.
And by the way, if I were Fox or Disney, I’d be wondering whether WBD brings enough to the table for that 1/1/1 split we covered months ago in that theoretically revolutionary sports streaming joint venture they were talking about.
Of course
was all over this with a deeper dive than I’m qualified to offer here, so go check that out.
Keep Ernie, get rid of the silliness and the out-of-control jocks who rob us of true insights into the game.