While Warner Bros. Discovery has exercised its matching rights on Amazon’s portion of the NBA’s media rights deal, it’s far from a done deal that the league’s partnership with WBD will extend past the 2024-25 season.
But while it might still be unlikely that WBD will fully assume Amazon’s deal, one prominent NBA figure is offering a potential alternative to keep the league on WBD airwaves.
On Tuesday, Mark Cuban replied to a post on X regarding the likely legal battle between the NBA and WBD ahead. In doing so, the former Dallas Mavericks owner proposed that the media conglomerate focus its efforts not on a national NBA package, but rather the league’s local rights.
“My suggestion would be that they get diamond local rights, and overlay the games on TBS for local broadcast,” Cuban wrote, referring to Diamond Sports Group, the regional sports operator the possesses the local rights for half of the NBA’s 30 teams. “Maybe lease a stick to expand coverage and of course streaming.”
Cuban went on to suggest that WBD could then expand its approach to non-Diamond teams as they become available. In Cuban’s estimation, such an approach would validate the company’s subscription fee for Multichannel Video Programming Distributors, who would be happy not to be paying separate fees for TBS and the RSNs where the local games currently air.
“Start with 15 diamond markets or so, and others as they expire It justifies their subscription fee for MVPDs , who also save money by paying WBD what they are already paying for TBS, and not paying up when the local network affiliate pays teams as leverage to get more carriage fees,” Cuban wrote. “This way TBS has most of the USA covered with local games. They show the same reruns they would otherwise show with no NBA deal in the markets without games[.] Fans who have basic cable would get all their local games on a fully distributed network or on a local bleacher report stream.”
My suggestion would be that they get diamond local rights, and overlay the games on TBS for local broadcast.
Maybe lease a stick to expand coverage and of course streaming.
Start with 15 diamond markets or so, and others as they expire
It justifies their subscription fee…
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) July 23, 2024
While it’s unclear why Cuban made his pitch for TBS and not TNT, he raises some interesting points. And even after selling the Mavericks late last year, he obviously has plenty of insight into whether such a structure would be viable why it would be appealing.
On the other hand, even with the uncertainty currently surrounding Diamond , accumulating such assets would likely be easier said than done for WBD. But Cuban’s suggestion at least offers a potential alternative for WBD to keep the NBA on its air in the event its attempt to match Amazon’s package proves futile.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.