Warner Bros. Discovery has settled its breach of contract lawsuit against the National Basketball Association, an agreement that will keep the company in business with the league for at least the next decade, reports The Wall Street Journal citing people familiar with the matter.
The accord gives Warner Bros. Discovery the ability to develop new shows with NBA content in the U.S. and abroad, and international NBA rights in parts of Northern Europe and Latin America excluding Mexico and Brazil.
The deal is expected to be announced early this week.
While Warner Bros. Discovery is losing rights to regular and postseason games for its TNT network after this season, the settlement will give it rights to a significant amount of NBA content domestically and abroad, the people said, and the league will avoid a continued legal battle in court.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s efforts to retain some NBA content even after losing its grip on a long-held rights package underscores how valuable live sporting events are and the lengths media companies will go to keep a piece of the action for their cable and streaming customers.
The company sued the NBA in July after the league signed new rights deals with Disney’s ESPN, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Amazon.com valued at nearly $80 billion over 11 years. Warner Bros. Discovery alleged that the league violated a matching-rights clause with its TNT cable network by making a deal to put games on Amazon’s Prime Video.
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