One of the big questions around TNT Sports no longer having NBA rights is what would happen with NBA TV, which is owned by the NBA itself, but operated by TNT Sports.
And while the sides did come to an agreement last fall that will see continued highlights for Bleacher Report and House of Highlights, the future of NBA TV wasn’t spelled out at that time. But it’s now clear that whatever its future holds, TNT Sports won’t be a part of it.
That news comes via a memo that TNT Sports CEO Luis Silberwasser sent to employees Friday. In the memo, Silberwasser mentions that this deal will end as of October 1, and that they made several proposals to keep operating the network, but couldn’t work out a deal with the NBA. Awful Announcing obtained that memo. Here it is in its entirety:
Hi everyone,
I want to provide an update on the future of NBA TV and our digital partnership with the league. After discussions with the NBA in recent months, we have mutually decided to part ways at the end of the 2024-25 season.
We made several proposals to continue to provide services and operate the NBA TV network and related digital assets. However, we were unable to agree on a path forward that recognized the value of our expertise, quality content, and operational excellence that our fans and partners have come to expect from TNT Sports. We will work closely with the NBA on a transition plan for the league to assume the responsibility of programming and operating NBA TV and NBA.com, which will be effective October 1.
It’s important to note that, as part of our new NBA agreement announced late 2024, we will continue to be digital and content partners with the league in other areas of our business such as Bleacher Report and House of Highlights, along with our ability to license and create NBA related content for our TNT Sports properties, and live games in some of our key international markets.
I understand the impact of this news to our team members, especially those who work exclusively on our NBA TV productions. In the coming weeks, we will hold meetings with those who contribute directly to the NBA partnership as we begin to embark on a thoughtful transitional phase.
If you have any immediate questions, please reach out to your P&C partner and we will make every effort to transparently discuss this matter with you.
I’d like to thank everyone who has worked tirelessly on NBA TV and our digital partnership throughout these playoffs, this week’s NBA Draft, and historically through the years. You have delivered a fantastic experience for NBA fans with an emphasis on quality that will be impossible to replicate.
Luis
It’s not entirely surprising that the sides couldn’t figure out a way to extend this partnership. Much of the logic for TNT Sports with operating NBA TV was that it fit in nicely with their NBA on TNT coverage. That saw many people, both in front of and behind the camera, work for them on both of those networks. It would seem significantly harder to operate NBA TV without NBA rights elsewhere (although it is notable that Silberwasser indicates they wanted to do that, making “several proposals”), especially with that network receiving less exclusive games in recent years.
The overall cord-cutting environment may also factor in to how desirable NBA TV is to work with the league on. While national league-specific networks haven’t faced quite as much turmoil as regional sports networks to date, fewer people with cable or equivalent bundle packages means less subscribers for league networks too. NBA TV was in just 33 million homes in May, slightly more than half its peak, and there are questions about its future in the overall TV ecosystem with so much programming and viewing shifting to streaming services.
For TNT Sports, this looks like a further refocusing of their efforts on the rights they do have. They’ve got a swathe there, including baseball, college sports, NASCAR, and more, and they’ve received some praise recently for their French Open and FIFA Club World Cup work. But it is interesting to see them exit this long-running partnership; while the NBA launched NBA TV in-house in 1999, the now-TNT Sports had been operating it since October 2008.
For the NBA, there’s also probably some logic in ending this partnership if TNT Sports’ proposals weren’t appealing to them. The league has significantly boosted its in-house content efforts in recent years, so it’s possible they could return to operating NBA TV themselves. They also have three new/existing media partners now; while Amazon probably doesn’t want to get into the cable network business (and NBC did make their own move out of that business on the sports side with the closure of NBCSN), ESPN’s certainly in it, so there could be some level of deal struck there (or even just a content-sharing or content production deal, where the NBA still runs the channel itself but can bring in content from their partners).
Thus, the league would seem to have options on what to do with NBA TV. And we’ll see which way they eventually decide to go as we get closer to that October turnover date. But it is interesting to see them and TNT Sports move on from this long-running partnership.