Paramount’s WBD megadeal paused by federal judge

Paramount’s $111 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery is on hold for at least the next two weeks.

According to multiple reports, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted a temporary restraining order Monday freezing the transaction, siding with a coalition of 12 state attorneys general who filed suit on July 13 seeking to block the merger on antitrust grounds. Martínez-Olguín has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 3 to consider a preliminary injunction, a move that could freeze the deal for considerably longer than two weeks.

The court has set an August 3 hearing for the states’ preliminary injunction motion. pic.twitter.com/UX2oQPeYIw

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) July 20, 2026

Monday’s order is the latest in a string of delays for a deal Paramount originally hoped to close by mid-July. The company pushed its target closing date back to July 22 earlier this month as it faced regulatory pressure on multiple fronts, including an Oregon probe into whether the Justice Department’s approval of the deal was “the product of a corrupt bargain,” according to CNN’s Brian Stelter. Prior reports indicate career DOJ staffers opposed the deal but had no opportunity to recommend a lawsuit before top officials approved the transaction in June.

The state-level fight has unfolded alongside separate efforts to secure approval abroad. The European Commission is reportedly likely to approve the deal if Paramount exits its joint distribution venture with Universal in Europe, while the United Kingdom is weighing its own intervention.

Neither July 16 nor July 22 was ever the date that actually mattered here. That’s Sept. 30, the final day of the third quarter. Should the deal remain unclosed by then, Paramount owes Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders a daily “ticking fee” worth about $7 million per day, or $0.25 per share. Monday’s restraining order pushes the deal meaningfully closer to that deadline, and a preliminary injunction out of the Aug. 3 hearing would put it in real jeopardy.

For sports fans, the freeze delays what would have been one of the more consequential rights combinations in the industry. Puck’s John Ourand reported in April that Paramount was targeting the third quarter of this year to formally merge the two divisions, with CBS Sports president David Berson considered the frontrunner to run the combined operation. And combining CBS Sports and TNT Sports would give Paramount a portfolio that only ESPN can currently rival, spanning the NFL, college football, the full NCAA Tournament, MLB, the NHL, the PGA Tour, the Masters, the French Open, NASCAR, the WNBA, and UFC.

Paramount has already tipped its hand on how the combination would move events around. The company said in March it has “flexibility with UFC” to place fights on TNT alongside its existing CBS broadcast arrangement, and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has floated moving some league games onto CBS once the two divisions operate under one roof.

For now, CBS Sports and TNT Sports will stay separate companies at least for the next two weeks, and potentially much longer if Martínez-Olguín grants the states’ request for a preliminary injunction next month.