Inside the NBA-Warners Showdown

david zaslav
Zaz made a lot of missteps during these negotiations...But his biggest mistake was not fostering a better relationship with league officials. Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Matthew Belloni
July 30, 2024

TNT’s Wile E. Coyote-style implosion of its four-decade relationship with the NBA crosses into several areas of expertise among Puck authors. It’s the latest face-plant for Warner Bros. Discovery C.E.O. David Zaslav; a glaring sign of the times as premium content migrates from linear TV to streaming powerhouses like Amazon Prime Video (all in, NBA commissioner Adam Silver scored $77 billion from Disney, Comcast, and Amazon over 11 years); a self-inflicted P.R. crisis, exacerbated by Zaz bringing in comms giant Edelman to stoke outrage among NBA fans and—let’s all wince together—play the race card against a league where more than two-thirds of the players are Black; and, now that Warners has sued, a complex legal matter. Much to discuss! Think of the below back-and-forth as our version of Inside of the NBA, only instead of Shaq, Chuck, and Kenny, we’ve got John Ourand (sports), Dylan Byers (media), Bill Cohan (Wall Street), and Eriq Gardner (law) to help assess the carnage and predict how it plays out. I’ll be your Ernie Johnson.