The NBA has requested the New York Supreme Court docket to dismiss a lawsuit by Warner Bros. Discovery, which alleged that the league breached its contract by rejecting WBD’s matching provide for a brand new media rights deal and as an alternative signing with Amazon.
The league filed its movement for a dismissal late Friday, and it contained the NBA’s pointed reply on a number of fronts to WBD’s lawsuit filed July 26 — two days after the NBA signed a brand new 11-year media rights deal value almost $76 billion with Disney (dad or mum firm of ESPN), NBC and Amazon Prime Video that runs from the 2025-26 season by means of the 2035-36 season.
That new media rights deal successfully ends an almost four-decade enterprise relationship between the NBA and Turner, which started airing NBA video games within the 1984-85 season.
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In a 28-page submitting, together with supporting paperwork, the NBA requested the courtroom to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, which means it could not be refiled sooner or later.
The NBA particularly argued that Warner Bros. Discovery — the dad or mum firm of Turner — tried to improperly rewrite the phrases of Amazon’s provide after which settle for these phrases.
“TBS selected to not match NBCUniversal’s provide, which might have enabled TBS to proceed distributing video games through its TNT linear cable community,” the league wrote. “As an alternative, TBS presupposed to match the less-expensive Amazon provide, however solely after revising it to incorporate conventional distribution rights and making quite a few different substantive modifications.”
Amazon’s provide was roughly $1.8 billion per yr, and NBC’s was roughly $2.45 billion per yr.
Particularly, the league mentioned that Warner Bros. Discovery “made substantive revisions to eight of the Amazon provide’s 27 sections (together with revisions to 22 completely different subsections), modified 11 outlined phrases which can be collectively used roughly 100 separate instances, struck almost 300 phrases, and added over 270 new phrases, considerably altering the events’ rights and obligations within the course of.”
The NBA’s legal professionals went on, arguing, “Removed from accepting every time period of Amazon’s provide, TBS’s revisions constituted a counteroffer that the NBA was free to reject.”
The league argued that the matching rights that Warner Bros. Discovery cited from the NBA’s 2014 media rights settlement with TBS had been restricted to distributing video games solely by means of its linear cable tv community, together with the remainder of its programming, and never on a standalone streaming service.
In its criticism, Warner Bros. Discovery famous that it additionally streams video games on Max, however the NBA argued Friday that the settlement for WBD to stream these video games stems from a deal between NBA Media Ventures and WBD subsidiary Bleacher Report that doesn’t include matching rights.
“Even when TBS did have the correct to match Amazon’s provide, it actually didn’t have the correct to basically change the strategy of distribution required by Amazon’s provide, the NBA’s first ‘streaming nationwide media rights deal,'” the NBA’s legal professionals wrote.
The NBA continued, “If TBS needed linear TV distribution rights, it might have matched a separate dearer third-party provide from NBC, however TBS elected not to take action, trying as an alternative to save lots of billions of {dollars} by combining Amazon’s lower cost with the linear tv rights granted to NBC.”
Moreover, the NBA additionally mentioned that Warner Bros. Discovery didn’t match Amazon’s dedication to pay roughly three years of its proper charges — roughly $5.4 billion — up entrance in an escrow account.
“TBS eradicated this safety by giving itself the choice to as an alternative present the NBA with syndicated letters of credit score that the NBA can entry provided that TBS’s funds are late,” the NBA wrote. “That isn’t even near the identical factor.”
On July 17, the NBA mentioned it had offered TBS with Amazon’s provide.
On July 22, TBS mentioned it had responded to the provide and matched its phrases, which the NBA declined to simply accept.
Two days later, on July 24, the NBA responded to TBS and outlined a number of causes — which had been cited in its courtroom filings Friday — that its response was not, in truth, a match.
These causes additionally included a minimal attain dedication — when it comes to the entire variety of subscribers — that Amazon supplied in addition to a method for measuring that dedication.
It additionally referenced advertising and marketing and promotional commitments Amazon had made.
“The response made by TBS doesn’t qualify as a match,” wrote Invoice Koenig, president of NBA world content material and media distribution, in a letter to Luis Silberwasser, the TNT Sports activities chair. The letter was filed as a part of the NBA’s movement to dismiss the lawsuit.
As a part of the brand new media rights take care of the NBA, Amazon Prime Video will carry video games on Friday nights, choose Saturday afternoons and Thursday night time doubleheaders that may start after the conclusion of Prime Video’s “Thursday Evening Soccer” schedule.
Amazon’s bundle additionally contains at the least one recreation on Black Friday and the quarterfinals, semifinals and championship recreation of the league’s in-season event, the NBA Cup. Prime Video may even take over the NBA League Go bundle from Warner Bros. Discovery.
Citing New York legislation, the NBA additionally argued that each one of WBD’s claims also needs to be dismissed as a result of Warner Bros. Discovery was not a celebration within the 2014 settlement between the league and TBS. TNT Sports activities, in a press release, maintained its place and argued that it fulfilled its contractual proper to match a third-party provide.
“Not solely is it our contractual proper,” the TNT Sports activities assertion continued, “however it’s in the very best curiosity of the followers who need to proceed to take pleasure in our industry-leading NBA content material with the selection and suppleness we provide them by means of our extensively distributed platforms together with TNT and Max. We’ll file our opposition within the coming weeks.”
Warner Bros. Discovery has till Sept. 20 to reply.
