Few covering the sports industry would go to bat for Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav. And it turns out, few of the company’s shareholders would go to bat for him either.
Zaslav, who has overseen a transformation in how WBD approaches its live sports portfolio, is set to rake in $51.9 million this year to lead his company through the hellish landscape of legacy media in 2025. But on Monday, during WBD’s annual meeting, shareholders voted to reject Zaslav’s eye-popping salary by a margin of nearly 300 million votes (1.06b to 724m, per The Hollywood Reporter).
The thing is, that vote is purely symbolic. Zaslav will still earn the full amount owed in his compensation package. And quite honestly, he might’ve earned it.
Despite seemingly overseeing the decline of WBD, Zaslav, some experts would argue, has the company in much better financial shape than when he took it over. Sure, the company lost its NBA rights (and looked foolish and desperate in the aftermath). But losing the NBA is saving WBD over $2 billion annually. And the company has been able to maintain the same level of carriage fees with distributors after the fact.
Even prior to losing NBA rights, WBD has been able to significantly pay down its debt which, by the way, is a large factor in Zaslav’s overall compensation. He gets paid more the more WBD is able to shrink its debt load. Investors seem to be rewarding the strategy, too. WBD’s stock price is up 20% in the past year.
Last week, the company’s credit rating was actually downgraded despite WBD continually shrinking its debt. Ironically, Puck’s Bill Cohan believes that’s a blessing in disguise, and something that could make the company easier to sell. Cohan has long argued that WBD is essentially a publicly traded LBO (leveraged buyout for the less business-inclined among us). Under that framing, WBD’s debt is actually an asset to its overall portfolio.
For us sports-focused folks, it’s easy to look at an NBA-less WBD now and conclude it is worse off. In reality, the company had a price threshold it simply wouldn’t cross when it came to retaining the league’s rights. It’s not the only company being more frugal with its live sports budget. ESPN is getting out of the MLB business and likely downsizing its exposure to UFC and Formula One.
In the NBA’s absence, WBD has gathered up a little bit of everything, for much less than $2 billion, and isn’t hemorrhaging revenue from the distributors. The company will likely take a sizable haircut to its advertising business, but overall, it seems WBD is coming out ahead — at least on its balance sheet — without the NBA.
Does all of that earn Davis Zaslav $51.9 million? Well, the company’s shareholders don’t think so. And, as THR mentions, these non-binding votes have impacted executive compensation in the past. Netflix made significant changes after a similar vote in 2023.
But for now, so long as Zaslav stays true to his grand plan, he likely won’t have to worry about losing his millions. So, Zaz can breathe easy.