NBA Cash Grab: Four Media Giants Set to Scramble for Ad Dollars as Games Leave Warner Bros. Discovery

variety.com:

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor One of the biggest dramas on TV isn’t expected to launch formally until later in 2025, but it’s already playing out off camera at four of the biggest media companies in the nation.

When the NBA bounces later this year from Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT cable network to NBCUniversal’s NBC and Peacock and Amazon’s Prime Video, the league will spark perhaps one the biggest transfers of audience and advertising dollars in the history of the medium since CBS lost a decades-old contract with the NFL to Fox in 1993.

Viewership shifts caused by that move, including the loss of affiliates, still pressure CBS today. Warner could be in similar straits: The company is projected to lose $1.1 billion in TV advertising in 2026, approximately 23% of its total this year, according to Robert Fishman, an analyst with MoffettNathanson, due in large part to the absence of the NBA on its networks for the first time since 1989.

NBA rightsholders, new and old alike, see massive opportunities. Disney, which is staying in business with the NBA even as it sheds some of the games it previously showed, is seen capturing $1.25 billion in annual ad revenue from NBA games, according to Fishman, thanks to its hold over the NBA Finals.