• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 10, 2025

Is there any sliver of a silver lining at Warner Bros. Discovery and its departing NBA relationship? Hope for more dunks and a younger crowd.It may have lost one of the most important U.S. sports TV franchises in the NBA, but it retains NBA highlight rights for digital properties, as well as having the rights to air NBA games internationally for 11 years. Is that enough?

David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, thinks so. He says that’s what young TV viewers want. They are in a hurry and really only want to see those special big plays -- dunks and like -- and move on with their lives.

Zaslav says it’s kind of like an NFL Red Zone program -- one that shows primarily touchdowns and big football plays -- from around the league in a quick show format.

Its longtime pre-game, half-time, post game “Inside The NBA” show will continue to air -- on ESPN and ABC -- via a deal WBD made with Walt Disney.

Still, losing the company's two-decade-long deal airing NBA games is significant -- at least for advertisers coming to the TNT network -- and may be a linchpin to pull in brands in package deals for other sports and non-sports TV content.

In the wake of all that, WBD has added more college football, NASCAR, college basketball, NHL, The French Open and other sports content that may have less wide 

Still, Zaslav looks to the positive: Sans NBA, the company saves a lot of programming expenses. For that alone Zaslav says its cost-conscious, somewhat half-hearted attempt to keep live NBA games around on TNT was a “great decision.”

Going forward, WBD still has a heavy lineup of U.S. based linear TV cable networks to contend with in its near term. What then does WBD do? A spinoff like what Comcast Corp is doing with almost all NBCUniversal cable networks; a merger with perhaps Paramount’s cable networks or maybe with the new SpinCo Comcast thing.

Right now Zaslav is counting on continued direct-to-consumer growth with Max and discovery+ to change the dynamic as well as what he says is all WBD international businesses going forward -- which, not so ironically, include major sports franchises under its European-based Eurosport pay TV network, which airs in more than 50 countries.

Recently, however, it closed Eurosport channels in the U.K. and Ireland, putting all sports content in those territories under its TNT Sports brand.

So sports still matter for WBD. But in the U.S. anyway, the big sports TV content and promotion awareness will now come via more limited high-profile content including its shared rights with CBS for airing the three-week NCAA’s March Madness college basketball event, and to a lesser extent from the NHL.

Is that enough for sports advertisers to keep their attention and dollars in WBD channels?