Warner Bros. Discovery Launches Stealth Marketing Campaign Against NBA, Amazon

variety.com:

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery is ready to call foul on the NBA. If the shrinking media giant has its way, athletes, influencers and others will begin to take to social media and other venues to criticize the NBA and Amazon for a new deal that will have the digital titan’s Prime Video stream dozens of professional basketball games starting in the 2025-2026 season.

Warner Bros. Discovery is working with Edelman, an independent public-relations firm, to wage a campaign that aims to cast aspersions on Amazon getting a $1.8 billion-per-year package of NBA rights that Warner believes should stay under its aegis.

The two parties have been working together for the past year on corporate-strategy initiatives, according to people familiar with the matter.

Under the current effort, Edelman will seek to line up athletes, executives and other luminaries to criticize the NBA’s decision, part of a broader allocation of media rights that also awarded games to Walt Disney and NBCUniversal in an 11-year pact that will commence after the next NBA season, which will be Warner’s last.