The end of the TNT-NBA marriage

For forty years, the world’s most popular and expensive basketball league gave the broadcasting rights to Turner Sports/TNT, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.  With the NBA on TNT broadcasts, it features a 19-time Sports Emmy Awards winning sports analysis show “Inside the NBA”.

The halftime and postgame show debuted during the 1989-1990 season.  Ernie Johnson, Jr. became the full-time host up to the present and had legends Magic Johnson, Reggie Miller and Chris Webber as former analysts.   Presently, retired stars Kenny Smith, Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley share hosting duties with Johnson, Jr.

But at the start of the 2025-2026 season, we won’t be seeing NBA broadcasts from TNT as well as “Inside the NBA”.

In a recent bidding, the league gave the 11-year, $76 billion NBA Media Rights Deal to Disney’s ABC/ESPN, NBC Universal’s NBC Sports/streaming platform Peacock and Amazon Prime Video which will air a total of 146 regular season games between them.   Disney/ESPN will air games on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.  NBC on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays while amazon Prime streams on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and all Play-in games.  Most of the playoff games and Conference Finals will be on ESPN as well as, for 12 years already, the exclusive rights to the Finals.

For the duration of the contract, the NBA pays Disney/ESPN $2.6B, NBC $2.5B and Amazon Prime $1.8B annually.

In an official statement, league commissioner Adam Silver said, “These partners will distribute our content across a wide range of platforms and help the fan experience over the next decade.”

Why was TNT junked?

Reportedly, WBD CEO David Zaslav publicly said in a 2022 conference that they have favorable deals with the NHL, the March Madness and the baseball playoffs that “we don’t have to have the NBA.”  That statement obviously irked the NBA bosses.  Media rivals smelled blood and moved in for the kill.

TNT matched Amazon Prime’s bid but the NBA went with the latter, citing that their offer doesn’t apply to an all-streaming package as what Amazon has.  The next best thing for TNT?  Let’s get legal and have the courts decide for an alleged failure to respect its matching rights, which, the NBA responded in a brief statement that their “lawyers will address them”.

TNT runs League Pass, a streaming service that feature games not shown on TV, as well as NBA TV and NBA.Com.  All three are owned by the league and it is unclear what happens to the website and TV station after the 2024-2025 season.

I would hate to see “Inside the NBA” and their often amusing star analysts go.  Of course, anything can still happen, and we could be seeing Charles, Shaq and Kenny under a different network.  Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame awardee Johnson, Jr. is doubtful to follow as he’s been a loyal TNT employee since 1977.