Turner Sports boss reportedly made 1 big mistake in NBA negotiations

Feb 18, 2023; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; The NBA logo on the court at Huntsman Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Warner Bros. Discovery has lost the broadcasting rights to the NBA and is suing over the situation. Some people are saying that the company’s boss made a big mistake during negotiations.

The NBA has signed with Amazon, Disney and NBC to be their broadcasting partners on their new 11-year media rights deal, which will begin after next season.

The NBA has replaced Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of longtime broadcast partner Turner Sports/TNT, with Amazon. In the future, Amazon will have the Thursday night package of games that TNT helped popularize.

Though Warner Bros. Discovery matched Amazon’s offer to the NBA, the league went with the tech giant instead.

In a story published on Front Office Sports on Friday, media reporter Michael McCarthy said that WBD chief executive David Zaslav made a big mistake when he publicly stated at a conference in 2022 that the company did not “have to have the NBA.”

Stephen A. Smith, who is biased due to being an employee for rival company ESPN, said the same thing about where Turner Sports had gone wrong.

Longtime TNT star analyst Charles Barkley has also said he thought those comments from Zaslav upset the NBA. But Barkley has also called out the “greedy players” and “greedy owners” for going with a streaming service that makes it more difficult for fans to watch games.

Zaslav’s comments might not have helped WBD’s case. But it also could just be that the NBA preferred to go with Amazon all along. Now they can now use Zaslav’s comments as a convenient way to make him the scapegoat for ditching a longtime broadcasting partner.

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