Former ESPN Boss John Skipper Says Retaining NBA Rights Is An “Existential” Must For Disney

deadline.com:

Former 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.