When Warner Bros. Discovery took a reduced role in the upcoming 11-year NBA rights deal, the company’s sports future looked a bit shorthanded. The point was recently underlined at WBD’s upfront event, when TNT Sports chairman Luis Silberwasser noted what the company’s sports rights looked like a year ago before displaying what they look like today.
The NBA wasn’t a key player.
Despite that change, this year’s board still had a veteran lineup including NCAA men’s college basketball March Madness, the National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Baseball (MLB), while adding the College Football Playoffs (on a sublicence from ESPN), Big 12 college football and basketball (also licensed from ESPN), Big East college basketball, Unrivaled women’s basketball, NASCAR, Roland-Garros (aka The French Open), the FIFA Club World Cup soccer tournament, and other collegiate events.
However, beyond its sports broadcast rights, TNT Sports’ true strength—and what’s driving it into the future—is its people. As its lineup of sports partners changes, the company is leaning into its familiar roster, presentation, and its comforts that defy media rights.
The value of that formula is evident in TNT Sports continuing to develop content for the NBA beyond its previous rights deal. Among those opportunities, the company will continue producing Inside the NBA for ABC and ESPN.
Craig Barry, TNT Sports’ evp and chief content officer, credits the company’s people-first culture for its resilience.
Barry, who has been with TNT Sports since serving as a production assistant for then-Turner Sports in 1989, said consistently values are why he’s able to look around various shows and divisions and see more than a dozen people—including Inside the NBA hosts Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley—who’ve stayed for more than 20 years.
“Even though we’ve gone through five mergers and acquisitions, at our very core, there is a little of that maverick Ted Turner spirit. It certainly lives in most of us who have been here a long time,” Barry said. “If you want to work in a place where it’s okay to do things a little differently, where it’s okay to take chances and be applauded for it, and have opportunities that extend past what the job description might be, then you’d be very comfortable here.”
