One of the core aspects of basketball is trash talk. It seems to have been a part of the game ever since Dr. Naismith wrapped tape around the first peach basket at Springfield College in 1891. If you’re going to tell your story, you have to back it up.
That’s why Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s 2022 diss track is a sudden jump ball between Zaslav’s TNT Sports and NBC over the final NBA TV rights deal, which is still under negotiation. It confirms that. Two years ago, Zaslav dunked in NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s league.
“There’s no need to have the NBA,” Zaslav, who reportedly earns an NBA star-level salary of nearly $50 million a year, said at an RBC investor conference.
Zaslav’s words rattled the ears of Silver and NBA executives. This left Zaslav and TNT Sports to fight for their NBA lives on Faust’s choice.
Either Zaslav shows restraint financially and loses the NBA to NBC, leaving a hole in TNT Sports in the process, or his reported asking price of $2.5 billion per season is cheaper than what he currently owns. Either they pay in a package and the NBA proves they need it.
A deal with TNT or NBC is expected to include biennial conference finals, as opposed to TNT’s current every-season setup. Both networks are expected to maintain broadcasts of the annual All-Star Game.
For now, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro and Amazon Prime Video head of sports Jay Mullin and their bosses — already waiting for a third winner on the negotiating medal stand — , clearly did a better job than Zaslav et al. Chief Lieutenant.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by: The AthleticESPN pays $2.6 billion each season for the NBA Finals and Conference Finals, while Amazon Prime Video, which will receive the Conference Finals every other year, is expected to pay in the $1.8 billion range annually.
Meanwhile, NBC is sitting there actively pursuing Zaslav’s contract. It’s a multifaceted corporate move by Comcast-owned NBC to reunite the league with its Michael Jordan-era partner and the “Round Ball Rock” theme song, with Mike Tirico already set to A one-two commentary punch is also included. And Noah Eagle.
David Zaslav in November. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New York Times)
Cable may be in decline, but Comcast is still in business. If Zaslav and TNT Sports stop broadcasting NBA games, Comcast could try to lower subscriber fees by about $3 a month. For Comcast, the savings could be up to millions of dollars.
NBC, meanwhile, is proposing to air the game on its network, saying it could fit in nicely after “Sunday Night Football” ends in early January. NBC also wants the NBA to support subscription streamer Peacock. And while not an incumbent, the NBA may prefer NBC as a teammate in this package.
TNT Sports has broadcast the NBA for nearly 40 years, including countless employees with long-time ties to the NBA, including Charles Barkley and the iconic studio show “Inside the NBA.” We are proud of NBCUniversal chairman Mark Lazarus is a media executive with long-standing ties to the NBA. Relationship with the League.
From 1999 to 2003, Lazarus led TNT Sports. During that time, the network hired Barkley, perhaps the greatest sports studio analyst of all time.
Lazarus also developed a strong relationship with Silver and Bill Koenig, the NBA’s chief rights negotiator.
At Turner, Lazarus rose to the top of Turner Entertainment, overseeing all programming from TNT to TBS. However, by 2008 he was fired.
He revived his career at NBC and now sits at the head of NBCUniversal Media Group.
“NBC and I personally have a long history with the NBA going back to the Turner days,” Lazarus said at the IMG Summit last September. “This is a great product, not just in the United States but around the world. It’s a really valuable product, culturally relevant in a way that probably isn’t the case in other sports, and speaks to multiple generations.
“So we’re interested in it, but we’re not the incumbents, so the process will come and go from time to time.”
The process is underway, but it’s hard to see how Zaslav will win. If he pays top dollar to keep a smaller package, he doesn’t need the NBA, even if he has since professed his love for the league and tried to pull the NBA back some. It would taint his words. If he loses the NBA, what will happen to TNT Sports, even if MLB, NCAA Tournament, NHL, and NASCAR remain?
TNT’s NBA history is a storied one, and many of the people who built it are still on the network, waiting by their phones to find out what the future holds. They practice at ground level while Zaslav attends games.
During the New York Knicks’ first round playoff game, TNT showed Zaslav sitting courtside during the celebrity roll call. Those things don’t happen by chance. Most notably, on a night in late April, the network’s exclusive negotiating rights window was closing.
TNT’s coverage is iconic because it’s filled with all the memorable moments with Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Shaquille O’Neal, and Barkley. But if this is the end of an era, the words that might define it could be Zaslav’s, and if he tries to stop NBC from completing his theft, then as a last resort, those words will fall into vain. may prove to be.
Zaslav cursed, but Silver has the ball and the commissioner may decide who gets the last shot.
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(Top photo of the ‘Inside the NBA’ crew in Denver for the 2023-24 season tip-off game: Jamie Schwaberow/NBAE via Getty Images)
