NBA Files Motion To Dismiss Lawsuit From TNT Parent Company

The NBA has filed a motion to dismiss the Warner Bros. Discovery lawsuit that alleges the league breached its contract by rejecting its matching offer for a new media rights deal. The NBA instead signed with Amazon Prime.

The league filed its motion on Friday, requesting that the New York Supreme Court to dismiss the suit from WBD, the parent company of TNT.

Turner Sports, which also owns TBS, began broadcasting NBA games during the 1984-85 season.

“In a 28-page filing, along with supporting documents, the NBA asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it couldn’t be refiled in the future,” wrote Baxter Holmes of ESPN.

“The NBA specifically argued that WBD … attempted to improperly rewrite the terms of Amazon’s offer and then accept those terms.”

The new media rights deal consists of holdover ESPN/ABC, Amazon and NBC Sports. The deal is reportedly for 11 years and worth $76-$77 billion and goes into effect in the fall of 2025.

“TBS chose not to match NBCUniversal’s offer, which would have enabled TBS to continue distributing games via its TNT linear cable network,” the NBA wrote in its motion, via Holmes. “Instead, TBS purported to match the less-expensive Amazon offer, but only after revising it to include traditional distribution rights and making numerous other substantive changes.”

The league went on to say that TNT “made substantive revisions to eight of the Amazon offer’s 27 sections (including revisions to 22 different subsections), changed 11 defined terms that are collectively used roughly 100 separate times, struck nearly 300 words, and added over 270 new words, substantially altering the parties’ rights and obligations in the process.”

In other words, WBD didn’t really match, the motion alleged.

“Even if TBS did have the right to match Amazon’s offer, it certainly did not have the right to fundamentally change the method of distribution required by Amazon’s offer, the NBA’s first ‘streaming national media rights deal,'” the league’s lawyers wrote.

“If TBS wanted linear TV distribution rights, it could have matched a separate more expensive third-party offer from NBC, but TBS elected not to do so, attempting instead to save billions of dollars by combining Amazon’s lower price with the linear television rights granted to NBC.”

This is similar to a statement from the league officials last month.

“Warner Bros. Discovery’s most recent proposal did not match the terms of Amazon Prime Video’s offer and, therefore, we have entered into a long-term arrangement with Amazon,” the league said in a statement.

“Throughout these negotiations, our primary objective has been to maximize the reach and accessibility of our games for our fans. Our new arrangement with Amazon supports this goal by complementing the broadcast, cable and streaming packages that are already part of our new Disney and NBCUniversal arrangements. All three partners have also committed substantial resources to promote the league and enhance the fan experience.

“We are grateful to Turner Sports for its award-winning coverage of the NBA and look forward to another season of the NBA on TNT.”