• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, October 18, 2024

Linear TV networks continue to search high and low for any sports TV programming content they can program -- especially when they get shut out of big-time sports leagues.

TNT Sports will be airing a new women’s basketball league called Unrivaled -- a league started by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart (New York Liberty) and Napheesa Collier (Minnesota Lynx). 

The league’s premise is focusing on three-on-three player competitions on a basketball half-court. Forty-five prime-time regular-season games will air.

Unrivaled will start up in January -- airing before the WNBA season -- and will be available on Warner Bros. Discovery cable TV networks TNT  and truTV as well as on the streaming platform Max. 

This comes as TNT Sports has been shut out of continuing its long-term association with the NBA in airing games.

Warner Bros. Discovery has sued the league to maintain its rights.

Instead, deals were secured by Walt Disney’s ESPN -- a long-term TV network airing NBA games -- as well as Amazon Prime Video and Comcast’s NBCUniversal. These 11-year long deals for a collective have been valued at $77 billion. 

Since then, TNT Sports has recently made deals to add more college football playoff games as well as the French Open tennis event, among other sports. It continues to air Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.

Other TV networks -- not associated with sports in years past -- are also adding more sports content big and small to take advantage of live TV viewers, who are highly prized by TV brands.

Over the past two years, the CW has transitioned from younger-skewing scripted dramas and comedies to unscripted entertainment and sports programs including Nascar Xfinity, ACC college football and basketball, PAC 12 football, LIV Golf, and WWE NXT wrestling.

Next year, TNT Sports plans to significantly expand sports programming on truTV to some 1,000 hours -- including Nascar racing and Big East college basketball.

That network has been an unscripted content-focused channel for decades.

Analysts have long talked about sports being the last true programming strengths for cable TV networks -- especially for keeping overall pay TV business viable -- to the extent that Walt Disney’s ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery has been trying to start a new streaming service packaging live, linear TV networks/channels.

That effort is now halted due to a lawsuit by FuboTV. 

The broader picture sees analysts wondering where things go from here -- especially for those other struggling cable networks airing general interest entertainment and unscripted TV shows.

Is there an end game coming?