NBA, WBD settle lawsuit over live game rights

Warner Bros. Discovery agreed to end its quest to own a package of live National Basketball Association games in the U.S. for the 2025-26 season and beyond, settling all of its legal disputes with the league.

Warner Bros. Discovery sued the NBA in July, claiming the league failed to allow the media company to use its so-called matching rights on a package of live games.

The league selected three media partners — Disney, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime Video — to be its U.S. distributors of live games for 11 years beginning next season. The total value of the deal, including WNBA games, was about $77 billion, CNBC previously reported.

The settlement with Warner Bros. Discovery, announced Monday, as well as a separate agreement between WBD and ESPN, will keep the company in the mix with some NBA content, production partnerships and licensing deals. However, it officially ends Turner Sports’ 40-year relationship with the NBA as a carrier of live games in the U.S. after this season.

Turner Sports has had an NBA package since 1984, with games airing on cable network TNT since 1988. The NBA decided to move away from Warner Bros. Discovery as a media partner for several reasons, including losing faith in the long-term future of cable TV as a method for reaching a younger audience.

Disney and Comcast have broadcast networks to showcase NBA games, and Amazon’s package is exclusively streaming.

The terms of the settlement grant WBD’s TNT Sports free access to highlights for the company’s Bleacher Report digital news site and its social media platform House of Highlights for the next 11 years, according to a person familiar with the details. The deal also allows Warner Bros. Discovery to license, create, and distribute new and existing NBA content across its media assets and includes live game rights in the Nordic countries, Poland and Latin America, excluding Brazil and Mexico.

The agreement also extends a partnership between NBA Digital and TNT Sports for five seasons that allows the NBA to engage Warner Bros. Discovery to provide promotion and “a variety of services, including production, content development and sales operations services,” according to a statement.

The settlement gives Warner Bros. Discovery years of guaranteed revenue from the NBA. The league isn’t paying WBD any additional money for those services beyond the terms of the settlement, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked to speak anonymously because some details of the agreement are private.