Warner Bros. Discovery hires PR firm in NBA media rights fight

After a protracted period in which details appeared in drips and drabs, things moved pretty quickly last week around the NBA’s new media rights deals.

On Monday, Warner Bros. Discovery made good on its plans to match Amazon’s offer as part of the new NBA rights deal that begins with the 2025-26 season. On Wednesday, the league announced it had rejected WBD’s effort to use a matching rights clause in their previous contract while also officially announcing their new deals with Disney/ESPN, NBCUniversal, and Amazon. WBD, through TNT Sports, released a statement saying the NBA “grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-2026 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action.” By Friday, WBD had officially filed a lawsuit against the NBA.

After that filing, TNT Sports released another statement that pushed home their claim that the deal is bad for NBA fans.

“Given the NBA’s unjustified rejection of our matching of a third-party offer, we have taken legal action to enforce our rights. 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,” read the statement.

That kind of language isn’t accidental. According to the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint, WBD is also putting a lot of effort into winning its case in the court of public opinion.

“In parallel to the lawsuit, Warner has tasked the public-relations firm Edelman to make the case that putting games on Amazon would be anticonsumer, people familiar with the situation said,” wrote Flint on Friday. “The campaign will argue that Prime Video doesn’t reach a large segment of basketball fans.”

On X, Flint expanded on the lengths to which WBD is going to get fans fired up about the perception that putting NBA games on Prime Video means there will be less access for some audiences.

“Edelman tapped by Warner Discovery to make case that Amazon-NBA deal puts added burden on large segment of NBA fanbase,” Flint wrote on X. “Edelman reaching out to influential members of Black community as well as orgs including NAACP, Rainbow Coaliston and National Urban League, per sources.”

Flint also notes that WBD’s argument here might be based more on perception than reality.

Question is will this fly given Amazon Prime Video can be subscribed to for $15 per-month, which is less than a cable bundle subscription.

— Joe Flint (@JBFlint) July 26, 2024

“Question is will this fly given Amazon Prime Video can be subscribed to for $15 per-month, which is less than a cable bundle subscription,” wrote Flint.

The problem for WBD is that Americans have largely already given themselves over to the reality of signing up for streaming services to get the games they want. According to Forbes and OnePoll, 99% of U.S. households are currently subscribed to at least one or more streaming services. As per DigitalTrends, Amazon Prime Video boasts over 200 million subscribers, second only to Netflix. It can be argued, however, that many of those subscribers are doing so for other products and services.

It’s also going to be hard to argue such a move is anticonsumer for NBA fans but not, say, NFL fans, who have been watching Thursday Night Football (in ever-increasing numbers) on Prime for two years now.

Ultimately, winning the hearts and minds of NBA fans probably isn’t going to make much of a difference in and of itself. Likely, WBD might be banking on drumming up enough fury so that politicians get involved. Even then, however, it’s hard to imagine the New York State Supreme Court will take any of that into consideration.

[Wall Street Journal, Joe Flint]