Warner Bros. Discovery sued the NBA on Friday after the league rejected the media company’s matching offer to continue broadcasting its live games, ending their four-decade long relationship.
The suit, which was filed in New York County Supreme Court, comes less than 48 hours after the NBA officially rejected WBD’s offer to match a $1.8 billion per year bid from Amazon, entering into new 11-year contracts with the ecommerce giant, as well as NBCUniversal and Disney, starting with the 2025-26 season.
“Given the NBA’s unjustified rejection of our matching of a third-party offer, we have taken legal action to enforce our rights,” a WBD spokesperson 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.”
Under the new agreements announced Wednesday — collectively worth $76 billion — national games will be distributed across Amazon Prime Video, NBC’s broadcast network and Peacock streaming service, and Disney’s ABC and ESPN platforms. Some 75 regular-season games will be nationally broadcast on TV.
“Our new global media agreements with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon will maximize the reach and accessibility of NBA games for fans in the United States and around the world,” Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, said in a statement Wednesday. “These partners will distribute our content across a wide range of platforms and help transform the fan experience over the next decade.”
In the 29-page complaint, WBD argued that its contractual rights should apply to the package of games Amazon was awarded, since the games were previously part of a package distributed on cable.
“That is exactly what happened here: Amazon made an offer for Cable Rights as defined in the [Matching Rights Exhibit], and TBS matched it. But, in breach of the Agreement, the NBA has refused to honor TBS’s match,” WBD said in the filing. “The NBA had no right not to honor TBS’s Match.”
The company added that, “unless the NBA is ordered to specifically perform its obligations before the 2025-2026 season, TBS will lose the unique and valuable distribution rights.”
Mike Bass, an NBA spokesperson, responded to the lawsuit’s claims Friday, saying it is “without merit and our lawyers will address them.”
The widely expected lawsuit from WBD, the parent company of TNT and CNN, comes after executives at the media conglomerate suggested in recent weeks that it would likely take legal action against the NBA to enforce matching rights in its existing contract. But the league said WBD “did not match the terms” of its deal with Amazon.
“Warner Bros. Discovery’s most recent proposal did not match the terms of Amazon Prime Video’s offer and, therefore, we have entered into a long-term arrangement with Amazon,” the NBA said on Wednesday.
WBD sharply criticized the league’s decision, saying it had “grossly misinterpreted” its contractual rights and vowed to take “appropriate action.”
“We have matched the Amazon offer, as we have a contractual right to do, and do not believe the NBA can reject it,” a TNT spokesperson said in a statement. “In doing so, they are rejecting the many fans who continue to show their unwavering support for our best-in-class coverage, delivered through the full combined reach of WBD’s video-first distribution platforms — including TNT, home to our four-decade partnership with the league, and Max, our leading streaming service. We think they have grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-26 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action.”
The showdown over the NBA rights comes as legacy media companies struggle to retain audiences, with viewers opting to leave cable bundles behind in favor of less expensive, on-demand content. As streaming services like Netflix have continued to attract and further carve up audiences, live sporting events have continuously proved impervious to declines in viewership felt across traditional television.
While WBD maintains the rights to the NCAA March Madness tournament, along with the MLB, NHL and NASCAR, the NBA remains crucial to the media conglomerate. The cable channel TNT has built a programming slate around the NBA games, most notably the highly rated “Inside the NBA” show featuring Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal.
On Friday, Barkley condemned the NBA’s rejection of a matching offer, blasting the league for prioritizing “money over the fans.”
“Clearly the NBA has wanted to break with us from the beginning. I’m not sure TNT ever had a chance,” he wrote in an Instagram post.
“TNT matched the money, but the league knows Amazon and these tech companies are the only ones willing to pay for the rights when they double in the future,” Barkley added. “The NBA didn’t want to piss them off. It’s a sad day when owners and commissioners choose money over the fans. It just sucks.”
