David Zaslav hasn’t been shy about speaking his mind in the news. The Warner Bros. Discovery president and CEO stirred the sports world up on Tuesday with shocking comments about a WBD Sports staple. Zaslav spoke at an RBC Conference and offered up a whopper of a quote, saying the network doesn’t necessarily have to have the NBA in its arsenal.
"Sports is hard."– Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav on rising costs and ratings challenges. Sports once "lifted all the boats." Says we have favorable deal on March Madness, NHL and baseball playoffs. On NBA he says, "we don't have to have NBA."
— Joe Flint (@JBFlint) November 15, 2022
Joe Flint wrote in a tweet, “‘Sports is hard.’ — Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav on rising costs and ratings challenges. Sports once ‘lifted all the boats.’ Says we have a favorable deal on March Madness, NHL, and baseball playoffs. On NBA he says, ‘we don’t have to have NBA.'”
The NBA on TNT has been a staple for the media conglomerate for decades. Its first broadcast of the hit pre- and postgame show Inside the NBA came in 1989. Sports become so synonymous with the networks they belong to. Monday Night Football on ABC was an innovator in television. March Madness and the SEC on CBS are CBS’ golden geese, as is The Masters. For a cable network, it’s even more impressive. Especially in the fast-changing sports media rights landscape.
Zaslav’s quote is already a concern. Especially with how things have gone in his tenure. But it’s also entirely possible that he negotiated WBD Sports’ next deal with the NBA here to the press. That being said, this quote drew nothing short of a wide range of reactions from the NBA world.
Let me counter: Yes. Yes you do need the NBA. Unless the NFL magically returns to TNT (not happening in the near future), you had better keep the NBA. https://t.co/92VKWmKwu1
— Jack Patterson (@JPattersonTV) November 15, 2022
Tough to square this with resigning everyone on NBA on TNT to new 10-year deals. https://t.co/21eSTyi1fn
— Rob Tornoe (@RobTornoe) November 15, 2022
He just gave Charles Barkley a $100 million contract https://t.co/3CxAl4phNO
— Yaron Weitzman (@YaronWeitzman) November 15, 2022
Boy howdy https://t.co/WHIARJufpg
— Jon Alba (@JonAlba) November 15, 2022
Oh, that's interesting. https://t.co/LIKRupH56D
— Mike Vorkunov (@MikeVorkunov) November 15, 2022
March Madness, MLB playoffs and NHL each under the $1B mark/year. Keeping NBA will require probably more than $2B mark per year. It's a better ratings play than the other properties because of the length of the season, but not hard to see someone like Zaslav blanching at price. https://t.co/uTRyMMrdzG
— Sports Media Watch (@paulsen_smw) November 15, 2022
Arent the NBA broadcasts the highest-rated non-NCAA Tournament shows on the network? https://t.co/XCeYYestNt
— 'Nata Edwards (@NataTheScribe) November 15, 2022
This is an F-around and find out equation slowly forming. https://t.co/VYS80MamlZ
— Andrew Hammond (@ahammALDC) November 15, 2022
