Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is sticking his neck out there again.
Just over two years removed from his infamous “we don’t have to have the NBA” comments, Zaslav is doubling down on that sentiment now that his network has, in fact, lost the NBA.
Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, & Telecom Conference on Tuesday, the WBD CEO claimed that his TNT Sports networks are better off without spending billions of dollars per year on the NBA. Rather, the company has scooped up a number of cheaper, less desirable sports properties to float its cable channels after the Association leaves town.
“Our job is to make sure we have enough quality sports so that we’re creating real value for the distributors. And it turns out not doing the NBA was a great decision for us,” Zaslav said. “We picked up the College Football Playoff, we picked up NASCAR in the summer, we have a great lineup globally, and we saved a huge amount of money.”
Just last week, Zaslav echoed that sentiment by telling investors, “We don’t need any more sports,” when asked if the company was looking towards picking up additional properties.
It’s a decidedly different tone than the one the company struck publicly just last year when WBD literally sued the NBA in a (seemingly) faux effort to regain rights to the league after deals were struck with newcomers NBCUniversal and Amazon.
Generally, industry observers saw those legal efforts as a means for WBD to extract maximum value from the NBA through a matching rights clause in its contract rather than an earnest effort to claw back broadcast rights. The company was rewarded, gaining highlight rights for its digital properties and rights to broadcast games in certain international markets, all for the cost of a few months’ worth of legal fees.
With his recent comments, however, Zaslav has gone full circle. He went from not needing the NBA before deals were struck to “needing” the NBA and suing the league shortly after deals were struck and is now celebrating not having the NBA.
Whiplash, anyone?
To Zaslav, those inconsistencies might not matter. Investors are clearly rewarding WBD for taking such a massive expense off its balance sheet. The company’s stock has surged over 50% in the past six months, and the threat of WBD’s linear networks taking a haircut on distributor carriage fees hasn’t yet manifested. Late last year, WBD inked a major distribution deal with Comcast that kept its rates flat despite the impending loss of the NBA, a huge win for Zaslav and Co.
If deals like that continue and WBD can survive on its more inexpensive portfolio of sports rights, Zaslav is right to say that cutting the NBA was a “good decision.”
But the final verdict on that move is still years away.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.