Get “Roundball Rock” back in the queue and pour one out for “Inside the NBA.”
The NBA is “closing in” on television deals with NBC, ESPN and Amazon worth $76 billion in media revenue over 11 years that will begin after the 2024-25 season, according to The Wall Street Journal.
These pacts could pave the way for the 2024-25 season to be the last for TNT and its beloved “Inside the NBA” show featuring Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson.
NBC, which would re-gain the rights to air NBA games for the first time since 2002, is expected to pay on average $2.5 billion per year with approximately 100 games per season, per the report.
About half of those games would be slated to air on the Peacock streaming service, with games set for Tuesday and Sunday when there aren’t “Sunday Night Football” commitments.
Amazon will pay $1.8 billion for its package, including regular-season and playoff games, the NBA In-Season Tournament and the Play-In Tournament games, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The global giant would also air a “share” of the conference finals, which are set to be split in rotation.
Disney, which already broadcasts NBA games, will retain its rights for $2.6 billion per year, per the report, an increase from the previous $1.5 billion per year deal.
Its network of channels will air the NBA Finals but will have less games than its current package.
The agreement will allow games to be aired on its upcoming “direct-to-consumer streaming service” that is set for a 2025 launch.
These deals will increase the NBA’s annual fees by more than 2.5 times its previous amount, nearing almost $7 billion per season, per the report.
Rights to WNBA games, more popular in part thanks to Caitlin Clark, are included in the deals.
Warner Bros. Discover, which owns TNT and “Inside the NBA,” can match NBC or Amazon’s packages, and the NBA could create a new package, although “options are limited,” per the report.
The entity is reportedly $40 billion in debt and had a chance to renew its deal before an April 22 deadline but passed on doing so.
TNT has aired NBA games since 1988.
Warner passed on re-upping at roughly $2.2 billion per season, “unhappy with the price relative to the value of the package,” according to the report.
The media company felt it had lost “too much valuable content,” including playoff games and the Play-In Tournament, with ESPN’s networks hosting the upcoming Celtics-Mavericks NBA Finals matchup.
TNT wanted to air the Finals, but the sides did not come to an agreement.
Amazon had begun working on a proposed deal prior to the April 22 deadline, while NBC made a quick offer shortly after.
“Zaslav and his top lieutenants calculated that the ratings performance of the NBA on TNT didn’t justify a major increase in fees for a smaller package of games, say people close to the company,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Barkley ripped TNT’s “clown” executives for potentially ending the universally acclaimed “Inside the NBA.”
“Morale sucks. Plain and simple. I just feel so bad for the people I work with, Dan. These people have families, and I just really feel bad for them right now. You know, these people I work with, they screwed this thing up clearly, and we don’t have zero idea of what’s going to happen,” Barkley told Dan Patrick last month.
He added: “My two favorite wines are Inglenook and Opus, and these clowns I work for they turned us into Ripple and Boone’s Farm and Thunderbird. Like, we got the best studio show, and it’s so funny, we just won the [Sports Emmy for] best studio show, but these fools turned us from Inglenook and Opus into damn Boone’s Farm and Ripple. It’s crazy.”
An official announcement reportedly could be a few weeks away as owners would have to approve the agreements.
