Bill Simmons believes Warner Bros. Discovery lost its NBA rights over a few conference finals games. Screen grab: ‘The Bill Simmons Podcast’

When it comes to the NBA’s media rights negotiations, few have been as plugged in as Bill Simmons.

After all, the Sports Guy was ahead of the curve in predicting that it would be Warner Bros. Discovery on the outside looking in once the deal is signed.

And while the NBA’s new deal has yet to be finalized — at least publicly — all indications are that Simmons was right. On the latest episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Ringer founder shed new insight on what led to WBD likely losing its partnership with the league.

“From what I heard — and as you know, I have good sources on this stuff — it came down to a couple of conference finals games,” Simmons said. “A few — let’s call it a few conference finals games. Not per year. Just a couple, a few, over the course of 11 years. And that became a deal breaker as they headed to the end of the exclusivity period.

“David Zaslav, who runs Warner, was basically  like, ‘Alright, we’ll take it in the open market then.’ I don’t know if he said that specifically, but if you let the exclusivity window close and you don’t get basketball and you don’t have a deal, then other people are allowed to bid. And they didn’t see NBC coming. And guess what? They screwed it up. Unless they didn’t want basketball all along, which is possible. But I don’t think it’s possible because for the next few weeks, they kept floating out, ‘No, no, we might match. We’re looking at the Amazon [deal]. The lawyers are going to be involved.'”

In May, Bloomberg reported that the NBA and WBD’s impending split came down to a $200 million dispute, which is consistent with Simmons’ belief that the gap between the two sides wasn’t all that wide. It’s also worth noting that while Disney (ESPN) is expected to keep one of the conference finals moving forward, there have been conflicting reports over whether NBC will exclusively receive the other, or if it will be split with Amazon over the course of the deal.

With the NBA’s agreements with Disney, Comcast and Amazon seemingly all but finalized, Simmons stated that Warner Bros. Discovery only options to keep basketball appear to be to try to match Amazon’s portion of the deal or hope the league will create a fourth package for them — neither of which he believes will happen. Ultimately, Simmons remains steadfast that the WBD’s 35-year relationship is nearing its end, with the ongoing fallout only further damaging the media conglomerate’s reputation.

“They’re like the spurned lover who won’t move their stuff out of the apartment,” Simmons said of WBD. “Guess what guys? Get some boxes. It’s time. You don’t want to have the spurned lover syndrome.

“And if they don’t figure this out soon, I think it becomes damaging potentially for the person who is running the entire company. Because at some point you have to have some confidence in who’s running it. And if that person not only blew a deal with basketball but then is trying to hang on on the ledge — ‘Oh, don’t let me off! Please!’ Not great. I would let this one go. Move on. They did the French Open thing. Do a lot of smaller deals and just admit that this basketball thing didn’t work out.”

[The Ringer]

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.