In what marked a sports media bombshell over the weekend, the Warner Bros. Discovery reached a settlement with the NBA regarding their high profile breakup.
But while most of the focus has been on ESPN being set to license Inside the NBA starting next season, as it turns out, there are other relevant details that affect not just NBA coverage, but also college football and basketball.
According to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, Warner Bros. Discovery is set to receive a collection of Big 12 football and men’s basketball games that originally belonged to ESPN as a part of the agreement. Set to go into effect in the fall of 2025, TNT and TBS will air 13 Big 12 football games and 15 men’s basketball games on an annual basis for the final six years of the conference’s current media rights deal.
Effectively, the overall deal is a three-team trade, with ESPN receiving Inside the NBA and WBD receiving Big 12 college football and men’s basketball games, in addition to free NBA highlights for the next 11 years. The NBA, meanwhile, will avoid ongoing litigation from WBD, while also managing to keep its signature studio show not only intact, but on its top media partner’s airwaves.
As for the WBD-Big 12 portion of the deal, it’s worth noting that the games — including 10 conference matchups in football — that TNT Sports is receiving were previously set to be streaming-only, so it’s not as if it will be a significant hit to ESPN’s inventory. But the contests should help WBD fill the voids left in its programming schedule left by the departure of the NBA, in addition to bolstering the Max streaming service, where they will be simulcast.
The deal also appears to be beneficial for the Big 12, which will see several of its games move from the ESPN+ streaming service to linear television channels in TNT and TBS. It also effectively adds a fourth network partner to the Big 12’s portfolio, with WBD joining ESPN, Fox and CBS, the latter of which sublicenses men’s basketball games via ESPN.
“This is additive to what ESPN and FOX bring us. That’s why this is a great deal,” Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark told Yahoo Sports. “Any addition to both is complementary and will lead to more promotion and marketing around the Big 12 and conference brands.”
