The Sporting Class: Decoding the NBA’s Billion-Dollar Legal Fight with Warner Bros. Discovery
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Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. I've been called dwarfy and never humpy. Right after this ad. You're listening to DraftKings Network. A coach who knows the game can teach their team how to improve, but one who genuinely cares about each player can inspire them to win.

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I'm sneezy. You are sick. It's just been one of those days. Have you ever had one of those days? We have too much to get to for me to get into it, but I'm not having a great day. Because you didn't get to eat your... My timing was all off today because of technical issues with the show I did. And when I agree to do a show, I agree at a certain time to do the show. It's live. You're supposed to do it then. When technical issues move it, that throws off my entire plan, and I did not get to eat. What time did we agree to do the show today? This

The same time we always do. 11:30. Right now. Right now. Right now is the end of Grumpy. We'll be happy because we're getting ready to have fun discussing the business of sports. That's right. The sporting class. A place where we talk about other people feeling grumpy, but we ourselves are thrilled to talk about how grumpy everybody else is.

Our group chat has been, I think, something that our listeners would love to be inside of. I want to recreate just the flurry of updates that we've been sending each other, the furies

the conspiracies perhaps that have been circulating all because now we have an update to the story we have covered more thoroughly and more rigorously, I believe, with more personal insight from John Skipper, former president of ESPN, man who negotiated the last NBA rights deal, and David Sampson, the hangry slash humpy former president of the Marlins, who is as plugged into this story and sports business generally in ways that I don't think people realize.

Humpy, that's a whole different- I try to keep it very quiet. That's a whole different Seven Dwarves than Grumpy. I've been called Dwarfy and never Humpy. That's a Cinemax version of that fairy tale. But speaking of prestige cable television, what is happening with WBD in this lawsuit is why we are gathering and starting with all of this grumpiness. And I want to give you the quote, John and David, TNT has sued the NBA-

WBD, their parent company, and they say this, quote, given the NBA's unjustified rejection of our matching of a third-party offer, we have taken legal action to enforce our rights. We strongly believe this is not just our contractual right, but also in the best interest of fans. Want to keep watching our industry-leading NBA content with the choice and flexibility we offer them through our widely distributed WBD video-first distribution platforms, including TNT and Max and

end quote and you guys are kind of smiling thinly at the very premise of what i just read strongly i always love that in the in the statement i assume that's from a pr firm do we think they paid a lot what do you think they paid crisis pr 20 grand a month they can do it you can do that they are a very prestigious firm edelman uh which does

gets to charge prestigious prices so yes they charge at least twenty thousand dollars a month which is great that they strongly believe that's always very important to me to put inside a pr statement because we don't want the audience to think that we only partially believe or we weakly believe so anytime you write we strongly believe it's as though we're convincing ourselves of our position and wbd to me has no position and then you bring in the fans and i'm not exactly pro fan and i acknowledge that fact

Great. Aggregate that clip, please. But to say that the fans are deleteriously impacted because they have to go to Amazon instead of TNT, that's really going to hold a lot of water with the judge. Or NBC. I mean, it's not. The packages aren't exactly identical to the ones they have now. I find the first part of the statement to be what you'd expect. We strongly believe that we have this right. We're asserting it. Of course they do. They're going to go to court.

The second one amuses me that they believe they want to bring in the power of the fans, which we've established on this show. What the fans want very seldom affects what teams, leagues do.

networks end up doing. They may please their fans by broadcasting the games in a pleasant and efficient way and thorough way, but I don't think anybody spends a lot of time when selling rights or buying rights thinking that it has to do with what the fans want.

It's become a mess. Can we give the state of play, David? So for people who were hibernating over the last month, the NBA has officially, well, I guess pending litigation now, legal updates. No, it's pretty official. Amazon has the whole thing up already. You can go on Amazon right now and see they're promoting NBA 2025, the whole package. So it's very clear that Adam Silver, as commissioner of the NBA, had a plan.

And his plan was to get a triple of his media rights deals. And his plan was to not do a deal with TNT and Warner Brothers Discovery. Rumors are that he's upset with David Zasloff because he said, "We don't need the NBA in an earnings call."

Adam Silver may be that spiteful, but I don't think that that's good business to be spiteful in general. I actually disagree with the first thing you said, which is he started with the premise that he did not want to do a deal with TNT. I believe he started with the premise that he would renew his two deals and he would add a third player and probably thought maybe a digital service would be a good idea.

third player. The emergence of NBC probably changed all that calculus, but I do believe that he did make an offer to WBD. Yes, you can renew what you have now or most of what you have now for the following number. And it's been reported that that number was around 2.3 billion. So I think he pivoted when they said no. And again, it's been reported they

thought that $2.1 billion was the most they would pay. So for the want of a nail, the horse was lost. And here for the want of $200 million, the NBA was lost. As a country lawyer, David. I hear audience just disappearing. Have you ever heard that for the want of a... I'm a New York Jew. There's something about noses and faces and cutting off things despite other things. I would say that there was an exclusive period who I love.

There was an exclusive negotiating period. And I would like to just inform you that the NBA was not exclusively negotiating with TNT. They're gonna tell you they were because that is what they have to do under their agreements.

But anytime there's the right of first refusal or an exclusive period, there's so much going on on the side, quietly in the hallways where people aren't paying attention. So I don't believe that Adam Silver went through that exclusive negotiating window with TNT with the view that there was gonna be a deal with TNT and had nothing ready to go. Because the pivot that you're describing, those don't happen like in 10 seconds.

So I believe that there was plenty of groundwork laid and that Adam knew exactly where this was going. And that has manifested itself in Adam's statements, his lack of real worry over this lawsuit, his ability to go in front of the world and a microphone and say, we've got, it's complicated, but we've got three partners and we're announcing it with press releases and quotes. Well, I don't think that contradicts what I said. I believe that the NBA put in front of WBD

So how do you answer the question of if WBD had said yes, they would have a deal? For 2.3. For 2.3. So I would tell you that he put in front, have you ever made an offer to someone that you know they can't accept or they won't accept? Sometimes it's a low ball. Sometimes it's that you're making them do something you know they can't do. And that's the whole case we're in right now. Well, of course, there is no way we can know that. It is my belief that,

based not upon firsthand knowledge, but about knowing the parties involved a bit and how these things work, I do believe they made a good faith offer that WBD could have accepted. And if they had, they would have the NBA rights. I don't think it was a trick. And by the way, again, I don't have- There's a lot in between a trick and a good faith offer. I like that David is positing the opposite of a Godfather offer. It is an offer you must refuse. It's an offer that you can't not refuse.

Exactly. And I love what you're saying because you use the words good faith and that's part of the lawsuit. Good faith is, we know, that's a legal term. It's not just between friends at a dinner. It is a legal term, but as you know, a very difficult term to adjudicate on. Which is why I don't think WBD can prevail here. But I understand why you have to say that the NBA did all this in good faith because that is one of the basic tenets of the lawsuit. However...

to not give NBA credit. And I think it's insulting to the NBA to say that they did not have an alternate plan. Well, no, no. They always had, and I've said this repeatedly, they always had, all you have to have is one more bidder than you have packages. They knew they had more than three bidders.

at some point. I don't think that led them to go, well, we want to cut TNT out. I genuinely believe that at the start of the negotiation, they would have been quite happy if TNT and ESPN had

renewed. They took some content from both parties, took some content that was formerly regional. That's why Mr. Dolan has protested and made a third package. And they would have been happy if that third package was Amazon because they did want a digital partner. They would have also have listened, however, to NBC. And if

ESPN, as reported, paid $2.6 million and NBC paid $2.5 million. They would have been happy with a $2.6 million, $2.5 million, $2.3 million. That would have given them more money. I think they would have settled for NBC, WBD, and ESPN. They were in the proverbial catbird seat. That wasn't the third package, the $2.3 million. No, I'm suggesting that... It would have been more assets. I'm suggesting that...

They could have, if WBD had said, yes, we'll do 2-3, ESPN said, yes, we'll do 2-6, you still have a very hungry NBC, which could have paid two points something, and they could have actually ended up with even more money with those three parties had that happened. Now, I'm not suggesting that was ever the contemplated endgame here. They might have decided that being on a streaming service was worth it

taking a little bit less money in order to be successful

own the kind of service that in the future will be almost exclusively the parties that are carrying sports. So I want to give an update here. Andrew Marchand at The Athletic provides a quote, interesting nugget. That's his own phrasing here. Amazon joined the exclusive negotiating period after the NBA secured permission from TNT and ESPN to bring them in. On this note, I am told TNT Sports initiated the idea of bringing Amazon in. TNT declined comment.

End quote. So that's when you partner up with someone who has something to bring to the table that you don't have, where the NBA wanted the reach of an Amazon and of their streaming platform and TNT couldn't match it with Max because not as many subs and it's just, it doesn't have the reach or the power. So when you don't think that you can answer an RFP,

whether it's a request for proposal, whether it's to build a building or whether it's to do a TV deal, you often do a joint venture. You partner. That's what mergers are, basically. So is there a world where TNT and Amazon would have made a joint bid, in theory, for an MBA package? It would not have been the C package. It would have been a joint bid for an A slash B package. Yeah. I think...

The answer is mostly yes. We're clearly in very speculative territory, so I have no knowledge that this could have happened. But WBD could have been thinking, gee, maybe the NBA will be satisfied with our 2-1 instead of 2-3 if Amazon comes up with a billion and a half, a billion eight, two billion, and they'll be fine. That's kind of not the way it works. You don't...

It would have satisfied them had NBC not clearly been – the NBC was very public. I would disagree that there were negotiations with NBC. The reason NBC was very public with it was to make sure Adam understood if for some reason WBD doesn't step up to what you want –

We're here. Come see us as soon as you have gotten through your exclusive negotiating period. I got it. People have lunches. Your theory is that they did it through the media? NBC let Adam Silver know, God, I hope he buys the Post today. I got to say, I did a lot of negotiations with leagues, including baseball, and I never tried to negotiate for somebody else's content.

before they got through their exclusive negotiating period. I often told people, get through your period and we'll talk about it. What's that? Well, that's not negotiating. That is simply letting them know you're there as a partner. You don't think that impacts how we would act during an exclusive negotiating period if you know that there's someone waiting for you on the other side with an open wallet and a big hug that it makes you play hardball during that exclusive period? Of course. But I also was on the other side of that, meaning...

I often had the exclusive negotiating period, and I believed my job was never to get out of that so that they could go talk to them. And I do believe in my negotiations with MLB and with NFL and NHL. And in NHL, I could never get them out of the exclusive negotiating period with other people in most cases. They ended up doing the deal before I got a chance to put an offer on the table. So I do think the league's

are very careful not to do anything that gives anyone the right to dispute that their exclusive negotiating period was violated. John. Exclusive negotiating period doesn't mean that you can't talk to somebody and say, I'll be here for you.

But if you think I ever, that I'm kidding about ever sitting in a room with a league and going, here's what I'll do for you if they don't pay you. I never did that. So let me, let me make sure. David for the YouTube and drafting's audience is almost seizuring.

No, I'm just, you're saying something that is, it struck a chord and I want to make sure I heard it right. The NHL, let's talk about the past of the NHL and their fees and their rights deals. Do we agree that they were not getting a lot of money for their TV? Are you willing to at least acknowledge that? Would have been what you mean by a lot of money. They were not getting as much money as the other leagues because they- They had a very hard time getting a TV deal.

No, they didn't have a hard time getting a TV deal. They always, they had an easy time getting a TV deal. They had a hard time getting the amount of money they wanted to get from a TV deal. Thank you. I'm very sorry. And so when you say that they did not take advantage of your willingness to do a deal because you never got them out of their exclusive negotiating period.

Did you say that exactly? Yeah, I can't have the exact recollection because I tried to get an NHL package at least two cycles and did not succeed. I do not believe they ever came out in at least one of those. I do not believe they ever came out of there negotiating with it. I don't think I ever got to negotiate when they were out of there. It's

Fair, but when you saw the deal that was done, did you say to your people at ESPN, wow, we would have done twice that? No, never twice that. But would I have beat? Would I have paid more money? Probably the answer is probably yes. And so there was no way for you to get that information to anyone? No, because the rules of engagement are they can't call me

Legally, they cannot call me and say, oh, by the way, John, I'm going to get $200 million. Would you pay $225?

I've been in some bad rooms, I think, because I understand you're saying legally and you're right. But what blows me away is that if ESPN or anybody, it's like when you're selling a house, it's when you're doing anything. If you know that the market is there to get more for your asset, you're going to do whatever you have to do to maximize the value of your asset. And the NHL was desperate to get better TV deals.

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I want to move for a second, though, from the deposition that David has been conducting of John Skipper to the legal question at the heart of TNT's objection here, which is that we matched. We had a right to match. Amazon provided X. We're also ready to provide X. And the NBA...

Now, this is their quote from their spokesman, Mike Bass. Shout out to Mike Bass. Devoted listener. Palpatory finds out. Quote. Because he has to. For better and for worse. This is his quote to the Washington Post. He may be listening just to make sure you don't say anything that will make them unhappy. Mike and I. But he probably is a fan. Mike is a good guy. Mike and I go way back.

Quote, Warner Brothers Discovery's claims are without merit and our lawyers will address them. It's such an FU statement when I saw it. It's outstanding. So the correlation WBD statement, what Edelman put together, it took up like a whole page. And NVA's response was one, barely a sentence with all the right parts of speech. It was just... Did it say strongly in it?

Without merit would be the phrase that... Wait, could we read that? Go ahead, read it one more time. Oh, sure, sure. Warner Brothers Discovery's claims are without merit and our lawyers will address them, period, end quote. So great. It's so good and they saved $20,000. I like how this is also the show where we become aroused by press releases. It's not ideal.

Only fans for press releases. That's right. But do you see the difference? I want to point out to the audience. It's incredible. It indicates a confidence, and I believe that it's also, to WBD, it reeks of an arrogance. But I wonder how justified, truly, like, my understanding is, and I want you guys to corroborate this or refute it, is that the clause in the contract, the matching clause, was not so specific, given that it was written at the time that John and...

TNT at the time negotiated it. It was not so narrowly defined about streaming or anything else. But there is this implication that Amazon is a company that cannot be matched by its very nature by TNT and WBD. It's a very interesting legal question because the matching provisions are always very hazy.

Because as we said on a previous episode here, it's not that you write down 10 points and that one company agrees to them and then the other company just has to agree to those 10 points and then it's a full match. It's a very complicated deal that you negotiate. Right. Remember, that would have been done back in 2013 or 2014. So you couldn't have known how many subscribers Amazon was going to have. You couldn't have known how many countries they were going to be in or how many people watched them. So...

you couldn't write in there, oh gee, if Amazon had a 200 million subscribers around the world, you have to match that. So probably,

I have the feeling, and I think you'll agree, David, that the NBA here has the stronger legal case. I don't think for a moment that they would release that statement unless they had talked to their lawyers. They have very good lawyers internally and externally, and they've told them, you have nothing to worry about.

should this come to a quick resolution in a court of law? Now you get to a more interesting question, which is it doesn't mean even though the NBA may be right about that, that WBD cannot create consternation, spilkus, for the NBA.

you agree with that david i i do but i think i'd like you to go then back to my original statement which is the nba got its confidence and it got the ability to release a one phrase statement because they had lawyered this deal with amazon so thoroughly with the matching provision in mind

Remember, the lawyers for the NBA know the matching provision. They were there. And Adam Silver's no dummy. You know that. And he doesn't suffer fools gladly. When he's doing Amazon, he's telling Amazon, we're not using you as a stalking horse. Trust me. Warner Brothers cannot match this. You keep going with us. You are going to be our partner. I believe that that's how it went down. He followed it step by step. He said, there's five days. You have five days to show you can match.

WBD did on the fifth day, and I believe the next day or the day after, I can't remember. It was the next day, Monday to Tuesday. The next day, they released a statement that said, this match, this is not a match. No match. Yeah. And then they announced. So what Adam Silver did even more as an up FU to WBD, they did a press release, a far bigger one than that one sentence, when they announced their deal with Amazon, with NBC, and with ESPN, with full quotes from,

from all the principles of those companies including the nba so while adam can call a press conference and say listen it's complicated i don't want to get too far into it the fact is he's all in that he is going to win this case well i'm just saying amazon is not going to do the negotiation unless as you pointed out they're convinced that there is no way to match they're not going to put their names on a press release which was probably done before the fifth day was over

They did take a look at what WBD sent them. They're like, oh, just as we thought, they cannot match. But so Amazon has satisfied themselves they're in a good legal position. NBC has satisfied themselves that they're in a good legal position. Because remember, theoretically, WBD, didn't they suggest they could match either one? So the case is actually would like an injunction. What they're actually asking for is to get rid of all three.

They're asking the court to say that we're going to stop the NBA from doing a deal with anybody while we figure this out. That's what WBD wants, but they're not going to get that injunction, but that's what they've asked for. So what is the end game here, right? So now I just want to recap what WBD has been doing. They hired this press release, this fancy press firm to release all of these things into the world. They're working journalists, talking heads, people behind the scenes. Charles Barkley,

is talking about how, again, we started with a two-part statement from TNT, the first part about the legal case, the second part about the fans, and Charles Barkley, the most famous broadcaster, the greatest broadcaster in the history of NBA broadcasting, you might argue, has said the same thing. He's echoed this. So they're working the PR side, the public relations side, the civic unrest side,

So what is the end game here? So they have these two tracks. They're suing for either specific performance, which means they want the judge to say, all right, you matched it. You get to do NBA games. Or in the alternative, if you're not going to grant me the right to broadcast NBA games, then pay me.

So those are the two things they want. I want to get to that here, John, because we're in agreement that it's unlikely that this judge will rule in favor of WBD and say, actually, yeah, they matched. Sorry, Amazon. So what is happening here in terms of what WBD is going for? Well, the judge won't have that right. It'll be a jury trial. It'll be an actual court case where the judge will oversee it. What I think we're saying is that the judge is unlikely to grant an injunction.

And that I agree with you because there's a year left on the deal and there's no way that Warner Brothers is walking into court and saying, we are so damaged by what's happening that if you don't, that's what injunction is, if you don't stop it right this second, every minute is like multiple damages. That's hard to convince the court when it comes to this deal with the NBA. But if the injunction is not granted, which I don't think it will be, and there's no settlement.

Then you proceed toward a trial, a case. It seems hard to me that WB—I don't know this, but it seems hard to me that WBD thinks they're going to prevail in a court case. Either get an injunction or actually go to trial and see a verdict that says, well, actually, you're right and you're going to get the NBA. Okay.

So that means they must think they're going to get something else. And the only thing I can think of is they think they're going to create enough consternation that they're going to put lawyers in a room and say, what would you settle for? And my guess is what they would settle for is money. At one point, it occurred to me that what they might like is actually to be relieved of their obligation to pay one point and

something, $1.2, $1.3 billion in the upcoming season and let Amazon or NBC start early.

And that way, Mr. Zasloff could say to his board, not only did I not overpay for 11 years of the NBA, but I'm going to get out of, I'm going to save a billion, a billion and a half dollars. Now, that creates all sorts of problems. I don't think NBC, busy with the Olympics, suddenly wants to turn around and do another season of the...

NBA right away or start in the NBA right away. Amazon doesn't have the production capabilities to do that. They can take Turner's people. Well, exactly. And then maybe Turner could save even more money by charging Amazon to do the production. Take Barkley. Yeah, take Barkley off their hands and pay for that. So I can only think that they're expecting somehow to save some money out of this.

That's an interesting theory. Yes. Because what you're saying is that the end game for WBD would be forget the fact that we want the extra deal. We don't even want this current deal. It was an overpay what we're doing now. Yeah, not the way they put it, of course, right? They'd put it that you're causing us by refusing our matching right, you're damaging us. We're going to continue with our suit. But...

If you would like to make us a financial office offer, we will go away. We'll save some money. My board maybe will be happy. And you start with your new partners. I don't know that. Did you budget nuisance fees with the SPN? We used to budget them. Okay. So nuisance is when someone sues you and you just don't feel like dealing with it. So you pay them.

whether it's a foul ball, whether someone is slipping for- - Is that a legal term, nuisance fee? - That's just what I would call it. It's like, don't bother me. It's like a gnat. Like I'm not gonna, it's not worth it to have my lawyer spend one hour talking to you. - Every big company settles suits that they believe are more of a nuisance than the money involved is worth doing, right? It's sort of funny because people always assume, well, if you settle, you must be guilty. It's not true.

Always. It may be true sometimes, but sometimes it's just, oh, it's going to cost me $10,000 to make this person go away. It's going to cost me $100,000 to adjudicate it. In legal fees and in time. I'll just pay the 10 because we can afford to. It's not an admission of guilt.

So the NBA, they could have in their mind a number. And that's how settlements happen, where the NBA would say, you know what? This just is not worth it to me anymore. We will pay you, David Zasloff, to disappear. You know the beautiful thing about being a sports fan? There is only like two days the whole year without a game. Two. Two days.

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Age varies by jurisdiction. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. Deposit and eligibility restrictions apply. See terms and responsible gaming resources at DKNG.co slash base. Now, the Barkley part of this, right? So part of the deliciousness of getting to watch the last season of Inside the NBA and TNT Broadcasting Basketball is that it is a lame duck year in which you get all of these outspoken people who have now been

riled up by a PR firm, let alone their own personal feelings. They've been empowered by their bosses on some level to make a mess, to object and protest on behalf of fans. That part of this, how would that fit into the cost benefit of avoiding that nuisance?

If you're running a network, you say to your talent, listen, this is our year. We're doing the games. People don't want to hear you complain about David Zasloff, complain about TNT not matching an offer, complain about the fact that you're losing the rights. On the last day, we'll say a tearful goodbye. We'll do a clips package showing all the great moments from inside the NBA, and we'll leave it at that. That would be my opinion. And that's what they would do. There are also non-disparagement clauses. They're not going to get away with going on the air and complaining about

The NBA also has recourse, right? They give them the schedule. And there are some things that are required in the schedule, but there's a lot of leeway. They could give them a lot of games between teams that would not draw to good ratings. There's no good business for anybody. And the public doesn't want to see anybody particularly misbehave. It's not good for your brand. It's not good for your company. I mean, you know.

you know, on your side of the desk, maybe you don't want to see that. On this side, I'm like, wait a minute, Charles Barkley has never met a non-disparagement clause that he didn't want to find some way to defy. Like, whether it's, I guess my question is, okay, we're taking off the table the idea that he's going to start a broadcast by saying, fuck you, National Basketball Association. He's not going to do that. But the ability to generate some sort of, again, PR headache.

You're saying that that is actually corralled by a non-disparagement clause that is enforceable and would happen in a way that would be— Hey, they're hard to enforce. It's resolved by a non-disparagement clause and the fact that nobody getting into a public fight is not good for your business. It's not going to do anybody any good ultimately. I don't believe—I do think if this quickly got resolved, let's say the judge—

Issues a what would we call it summary judgment? No, there's no case here. I'm throwing this out You have no case then TNT will behave graciously on the air. They might be mad They might say things at a dinner party They're not gonna have a public fight with the NBA fans are not gonna like it and they're making way too much of inside the NBA it is by far the best and

NBA studio show ever. Perhaps the best, among the best studio shows ever. Also, yeah. Fans move on in a hurry and don't care. They'd like to see that show, but when the games move over, the audiences are not going to go down. Audiences on Sunday night on NBC are going to be higher than TNT, whatever their studio show is. The handoff from football. Please don't sully Jane Kennedy, Phyllis George, Irv Cross, and Jimmy the Greek, and Brent Musburger. I just, I will not stand for that.

I just want to ride in for a good degree. It was actually pretty fun. That was a great booth. It was fantastic. And people loved it, but they tuned in to see the game. And this is part of it, right? So it's a depressing, this is a depressing reality that you keep on reiterating, which is that you could have, you could knock whatever studio programming content out of the park.

And yet when it comes to using that as a lever upon the actual reality of your business, it means virtually nothing, even as Charles Barkley is now saying. And this is unshocking to any of us. I believe we talked about this even in France. I don't know if we actually made it onto our episode saying it. But Charles Barkley is now not retiring. He'll talk to other suitors. He's on. He revealed this a 10 year, $210 million deal.

He said he's an out if WBD TNT loses the NBA, but reportedly also contrary to that, he doesn't. That's also out there in the world. And Zaslav, according to John Orand of Puck, is saying that, yeah, he would like to keep Barkley around. I would just also point out that Barkley also said, and I was fuming on behalf of WBD, and I may have misheard it, so you'll correct me, that he's already listened to Zaslav

Disney and Amazon and NBC. He's under contract with WBD, getting paid $21 million a year. You're not allowed to do that. I assume he's got non-competes. I assume that he is under exclusive contract. I would be looking at his termination for cause provisions if I were on the board of WBD trying to get rid of him.

because not only is he a nuisance, but $21 million, which of course cuts against our theory that pregame shows don't matter since they're paying the people on that desk collectively more than any of the announcers by a factor of 10. So it's an interesting thing that why would you pay so much to something that doesn't matter? Will?

I think there are many things you could do with Charles Barkley that would financially benefit your company. And while I said it doesn't matter in terms of the ratings, they're running ads in that pregame show which pay for those salaries. So it's not like they're throwing money out the door. If I would keep Charles Barkley, I'd put him in a situation comedy. I would put him, I would do what NBC is doing with Snoop Dogg on the Olympics, which has worked.

Charles Barkley is the most entertaining commentator. If I was NBC, I would absolutely love to have him on my show.

on my Sunday night NBA, and I would take him to the next Olympics where he would be a smash. - You know the entertainment world is littered with people who view themselves as the ability to be diversified across entertainment platforms. People try to do talk shows when they are sports people. - Yeah, Barkley did a CNN show with Gayle King, which did not last.

that's not what i would do with him a very different content strategy you said sitcom you said have him do all these things his appeal is the nba and if he's doing no nba you're trying to create him as this personality for 21 million a year

That's a big chance. I would let him go to Amazon or NBC or Disney. I'd keep him. I think there's something you could do with him. Again, if Snoop Dogg becomes the star, which he has, he's been terrific and has made a difference, I think, in the ratings on the Olympics. And if Charles Barkley would just smoke a little more marijuana, he would probably be just as violent. That's what I really found out today, is that Charles Barkley needs to smoke weed.

A lot of weed. More weed. More weed, presumably. Thank God you don't run a network anymore. Oh, wait a minute.

So I want to get to another thing that John had some perspective on, which is that the judge assigned to the case has a background with the NBA. He was representing the Spirits of St. Louis, a now defunct ABA team in litigation against the NBA. A fact that the judge who was assigned to this case, Joel M. Cohen, had to disclose because the

This is what you do when you're now presiding over a case involving someone that you were in litigation against. And so, John, can you explain the spirits of St. Louis case with the NBA? Because this is one of the great sports business stories of all time, it sounds like. This is one of the most profitable settlements, negotiations any sports entity has ever done. So when the NBA and the ABA merged...

They made an agreement that the NBA would accept four new teams. I believe that was Pacers, Spurs, Nets. Nuggets. And Nuggets. But everybody, all the teams in the ABA got paid something. There was something paid that the team split. Four of the teams kept participating. Every team in the ABA agreed with that, other than the Spirits of St. Louis, who said, we refuse to accept this.

So it was decided that everybody else would move on. The Spears of St. Louis would then get a cut of the NBA media rights deals into perpetuity. They refused to go away and they got a share of what was then not what it is now. And I believe, though I can't be certain if these numbers are right, that

in the next couple of deals, they did participate and aggregated about $300 million.

And then we're paid about $500 million in 2013, 2014 to basically go away. We're going to get ready to do new deals. We're tired of dealing with this. And we're going to pay you a big old lump sum of money to go away. Before the new deal. Before the new deal got done. That was baked into the settlement. This people with the spirits knew that.

the deals were going up. - Yeah, yeah. - It was more like a pay now. You know, when you buy something, you can pay now and it's a little bit cheaper. Like with a lottery ticket, if you take a current payment today, you get less, but you get it all now, like a bulk payment versus a stream. What this deal was, was they had a stream

But the people who did the deal, everyone's getting older, people are dying, there's estate planning to think about. For the NBA, I don't agree that it was such a big deal. When they make distributions, there's 30, instead of 30 teams, there's 31 teams. So it was not a clerical like, oh my God, this is impossible. Oh no, I-

It was just annoying to owners who were giving it up. They're going to get expansion, so they're trying to get to 32. They're trying to expand to get to 32 teams, so that'll be a further split in their TV rights. And when this deal was approved by the NBA owners, the current one and the last one, what owners do is they do the math. Like, all right, how much am I getting of this? Right, and they just wanted that out. I just want a one.

admire that the spirits of St. Louis managed to get $800 million for folding their team. Nobody in sports, it's a very profitable enterprise to get paid for not having a team. I assume the margins were very close to 100%. It's the dream. Yes, some clerical bills, I'm sure. But we say the same thing when someone, "Wow, I can't believe you're smart enough to buy a Picasso."

right when he was alive, like who would have and not sell it. And now it's worth $80 million. So, or buy a house in a bad neighborhood and all of a sudden, wow, this became a good neighborhood. So there are examples, but certainly this is from a sports business standpoint. It was very smart of them to keep the tail because you just didn't know what was gonna happen with media. And clearly, thanks to you, mostly it's blown up in a way that that became worth a lot of money. Right, eviction.

For their eviction, they got $800 million drinking from the fountain that, yeah, John helped. But remember, teams right now that operate are worth $4 billion or $6 billion. So we say that what a great deal for them. They would much rather have been included and been in the NBA.

as opposed to being paid to go away, even though they got, again, almost a billion. - Even though they were smarter than others, but in reality, the Nets and Nuggets and Pacers and Spurs are worth a hell of a lot more than the TV money that the guys were getting. - It's absolutely true. - Now, the judge, to go back to just what this means for this pending litigation,

Is there any concern from either party here that the judge was the guy who represented the spirits of St. Louis in that deal we just described? He was in a law firm called Davis-Polk. It's a big law firm, and so he was one of the lawyers on the case. And this is standard that judges do this because many judges were lawyers in their last life, and they know they have a list of all the cases they worked on, whether they remember them or not, whether they worked on them or not, actually. And you just send a little note to both parties saying, by the way, this

This may interest you, let me know. But in real life, no one cares because the two parties, they could say, hey, you know, we're not that comfortable. And then there'll be a hearing about this, but the hearing would be in front of

The judge himself who would decide whether he wants to recuse himself. I don't think either party will object or even will respond to that letter. I agree. I mean, the fact that he did disclose, I think is a sign that this is a reputable lawyer and probably now a very reputable judge. And there's no very little reason for anybody to create a problem here.

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hypothetically, for WBD looking ahead now, right? So I'm trying to get a sense of the weapons left on the table, the moves, the punishing nature of what it means to be in negotiations against not just a media company, but in Comcast.

Something that is doing deals with media companies like WBD, right? The difference between being, give me the term of art, John, between being a media company like TNT versus a cable company. Now, more than that in Comcast. Well, what's interesting, of course, is it's already been speculated that NBC may have included in their calculations for doing an NBA deal, the fact that they would be taking it

from a company that's going to be asking them for distribution fees. It was reported this week, I believe, by John Arand, that the deal, that last deal that Turner did, not WBD, but TNT, TBS, TruTV, perhaps among other channels,

ends deliciously December 31st, 2025, which will be about two months into the new year

NBA deal that NBC holds. Yes. They're holding their larger company Comcast will have the opportunity to renegotiate the fees that they pay TruTV, TBS, TNT at that point.

It has been reported that TBS, TNT, I'm sorry, gets $3. TBS probably gets something not too far from that. True TV gets something very far from that. Out of the monthly cable bill. Out of the monthly, well, it's not a monthly, it's out of the monthly cable bill, not directly. The distributor-

pays for the content. They then put it in a bundle of content. They mark it up an appropriate amount or an inappropriate, depending on what you think, amount, and that's what they charge the consumer. The consumer has no idea what they're paying for, TBS, TNT, and TruTV. But this deal will come up, interestingly enough, at the end of 25. Let's say that they're getting approximately somewhere between $5 and $7.00.

That means if they don't renew the deal, and let's say they have 12 million subscribers at the time, that's somewhere between 60 and $84 million a month.

They did just buy at one of the networks, TNT or TBS, two college football games, one of which may be on the first day they'd be off the air. That holds some power. I don't think it has enough power to prevent Comcast from saying, we're not going to pay you $9 next year, nor $8, nor $7. We'd like to pay you less.

And just as Comcast just took Diamond off for what, about three months? Regional Sports Network, yeah. They'll take these channels off the air, and they can take that money, theoretically, off of the price they paid for the NBA. Oh, we paid $2.5 million, yeah. But we'll save about $75 million every month they're not on the air. I do not believe all that matters then is whether –

some of their 12 million or so subscribers at the time decide, oh, I want to see that college game bad enough that I'm going to switch to somebody else, YouTube TV or the new, deliciously, the new cable bundle that will feature all the sports channels, which includes True TV, TBS. And so there'll be a big fight here. And I do believe that this will cost money

WBD some money because they're either gonna get lower distribution fees or they're going off the air for some period of time in January, 2026. - Man, I just wanted to simplify two things that were said there. I'm trying to follow and I did, but I just wanna say, make sure I have this right.

When you can do a deal where you make yourself stronger, but you also make your opponent weaker, that increases the breadth of the victory that you have by doing a deal. Is there a world where Comcast and NBC got together and said, if we get the NBA and TNT doesn't, not only do we have the NBA and TNT doesn't, but also we have as part of our world a cable company called Comcast where

where people pay us every month to get cable channels. One of the cable channels we get that we give our customers is TNT. But now who wants TNT? It's a bunch of SVU and Law & Order. There's going to be no basketball, maybe a football game once in a while. If TBS is going to have some college football games. They'll have the French Open. They've got stuff. But without the NBA, people are really not going to want TNT the way they did.

Therefore, we're not going to pay TNT for its content the way we did. Therefore, we're going to save money. And therefore, we can take some of that savings and apply it to what we spent to ruin them by getting the NBA. Boy, that is Machiavellian. And it's not impossible that that's part of the calculation, but that really is something else. And you're either going to be right or wrong because if there's a carriage dispute at the end of 25, that does save money.

$60, $70 million a month. That's significant. It is significant. And look, if another party, if TNT had actually kept the NBA and, or

It doesn't matter. They would have the cable dispute, and I don't think it was Machiavellian. That's smart. You're going to look at everything. You're going to look at the promotional power of the NBA to drive your other sports, right? During the Olympic year, they can take the NBA and all those ratings and drive Olympics ratings up.

They will save money. Comcast will save money from fees they don't have to pay TNT. Sure, they figured all that out. I don't believe... It's funny that we disagree on the sort of negotiating during a...

an exclusive negotiating window. But I don't see anything wrong with NBC having done all that. They're not violating anything to look at all the benefits they'll receive from paying for a new NBA deal. It might help them launch broadcast shows on NBC. I mean, all those things were calculated. In a situation comedy. But I am marveling at, again, just the basic terms that we keep on learning here, like a distributor, a cable distributor, right?

is a buyer and a seller. WBD is trying to sell. I mean, it's just funny that as much as we are looking ahead to Amazon and the tech future that has been now the NBA's goal in that C tier, third tier package, we're also watching the

Yeah, the backroom knifing. That's why our Justice Department is so busy. With cable television networks and distributors. I don't see what they have to deal with here. These companies compete. They are competing fairly. Not in this case. I was talking about the mergers that happen. To quote Shakespeare at the end of our show here now, exit pursued by a bear. Wait to see. Wait to see. John, David, thank you.

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.