NBA rejects Warner Bros. Discovery on deal, to go with Amazon

The drama around the next pro basketball media deal took its next step Wednesday, as the National Basketball Association rejected an attempt by Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD) to remain an incumbent by exercising matching rights.

The NBA reached an 11-year, $76B-plus package deal last week with ESPN (NYSE:DIS), NBC (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), leaving out multi-decade partners TNT and TBS (WBD).

But WBD exercised its incumbent matching rights — moving just at the end of a five-day window to try to match Amazon’s $1.8B piece of the deal.

WBD said “We look forward to the NBA executing our new contract” — though the league was widely thought to prefer moving forward with a streaming-first partner like Amazon.

Unsurprisingly, that’s the NBA’s stance now. “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 NBA said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.

The next steps on a near-$2B deal would appear to be legal.

The new 11-year media rights deal is set to take effect in 2025.

Updated: WBD stock fell 2.2% in postmarket trading, as of 4:53 p.m. ET.