Former ESPN Boss John Skipper Says Retaining NBA Rights Is An “Existential” Must For Disney
deadline.comFormer ESPN President John Skipper, who led the effort to secure the current NBA rights deal, says incumbents Disney and Warner Bros.
Discovery have no choice but to re-up with the league. “These are existential rights for ESPN,” he said during an episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, a podcast produced by Meadowlark Media, which Skipper co-founded in 2021. “They have to have the NBA.
And it’s pretty close to existential with TNT. I don’t know if they have to have the NBA, but I think they do.” The companies’ 9-year pacts with Turner and ESPN, which average a total of $2.6 billion a year, are due to expire at the end of the 2024-25 season.
As has happened in the NFL and other sports, large tech firms like Amazon and Apple are taking a close look at the rights given the overall shift toward streaming.
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