NBA makes major move in lawsuit

In a court filing made in response to Warner Bros. Discovery’s lawsuit over matching rights to media rights deals, the NBA has urged the New York Supreme Court to seal Amazon and NBC’s bids, alleging they “would cause substantial competitive harm” to all parties if made public.

Per the Sports Business Journal , the NBA made the filing on August 12 and claimed public knowledge of the bids could give “respective counterparties, rivals and other partners (e.g., sponsors and advertisers) an informational advantage in future negotiations concerning media rights (and advertising) that they could leverage to attempt to extract concessions from the NBA, Amazon and NBCU (or otherwise to their detriment).’’

The media rights deals with NBC and Amazon reportedly contain language that cannot be matched by Warner Bros. Discovery. For Amazon, this includes language about advertising during Thursday Night Football (which airs on Prime Video) and promotions on retail packaging.

Additionally, the league claimed that the Warner Bros. Discovery attempt at matching included “distribution methods other than the Internet (e.g., cable and satellite),’’ which the NBA believes is not a match.

The NBA has until August 23 to officially respond to the lawsuit by Warner Bros. Discovery. The general belief is that the league will file a motion to dismiss. If that happens, and the motion is granted, that will likely close the door to the NBA returning to TNT in some form after the 2024-25 season.

[ Sports Business Journal ]

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