Warner Bros. shares fell. Discovery with NBC preparing a bid for the NBA rights

Warner Bros. stock closed. Discovery (WBD) was down more than 9% on Tuesday afterward The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday Comcast subsidiary NBCUniversal (CMCSA) is working on a bid for an NBA rights deal that could move the league outside of Warner Bros.' TNT network.

Tuesday's drop marked the lowest close since February 24, 2009 for the stock.

According to the Wall Street Journal, NBC is close to a deal to pay $2.5 billion annually to broadcast a host of NBA games, more than double the $1.2 billion annual fee paid by Warner Bros. Discovery currently.

The package will reportedly include playoff and regular season games that will be broadcast on NBC, along with the company's streaming service Peacock.

Warner Bros. couldn't. Discovery was able to conclude a new agreement with the league before the exclusivity negotiation period ended last week, according to the report. The current NBA rights deal expires at the end of next season.

Disney (DIS), the NBA's other major broadcast partner, has reportedly agreed to increase its $1.5 billion annual payout to $2.6 billion in order to renew its deal, according to the newspaper.

Amazon (AMZN) as well In conversations To obtain a streaming rights package through the Prime Video service.

Interest in sports rights has surged in recent years with tech giants like Amazon, Apple (AAPL) and YouTube (GOOG, GOOGL) committing more to streaming deals over the past several years.

Amazon, which launched its first Black Friday NFL game in November, has agreed to spend $1 billion annually For an 11-year NFL Thursday Night Football deal, while Google 's YouTube coughed up a mentioned $2.5 billion to acquire the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket.

Apple, meanwhile Announce A 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement with Major League Soccer in late 2022.

These deals, funded by big money from Big Tech, have inflated the overall costs of sports as traditional media giants struggle to keep up with massive broadcast losses and significant declines in linear advertising revenue.

Warner Bros. announced Discovery recently announced an upcoming sports streaming “joint venture” (JV) partnership with ESPN and Fox. Disney, WBD and Fox combined currently account for about 55% of all US sports rights.

Alexandra Canal He is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, linkedin, And email it to [email protected].

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