MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The NBA and the WNBA have signed new deals for media rights, with a big shift towards streaming. Amazon Prime Video will add basketball to its sports portfolio that already includes the NFL. They join Disney, the parent company of ESPN and ABC - and NBC, which will run games on its streaming platform, Peacock. The combined price tag? Seventy-seven billion dollars over the next 11 years. For more on the deals, we're joined now by Wall Street Journal reporter Isabella Simonetti. And she's with us now. Good morning.
ISABELLA SIMONETTI: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: Thanks for coming. What does this deal tell us about how we will be watching basketball after next season?
SIMONETTI: Yeah, so the deal is fairly streaming-heavy, with so many of the games available on NBC's Peacock streaming service, as well as Amazon Prime, which will mark a big shift for consumers. And I think that's been a priority of the leagues. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said at a press conference on July 16 that streaming has become predominant. And he also said that, we wanted to make sure that going forward, our games would be accessible to our fans through various streaming services. So that's really come through in this deal.
MARTIN: OK, so that's news to me, that streaming is the dominant way people watch already.
SIMONETTI: No, it's a priority of the leagues to get more people - more games available on streaming for fans who are already there.
MARTIN: OK, I see. So they want to meet the fans where they already are. OK. Notably, the NBA rejected a bid from longtime partner Warner, which owns TNT, which is the home of "Inside The NBA." What happens to the show?
SIMONETTI: Yeah, so what's interesting here is that TNT, which has held the NBA rights for decades, is apparently losing them after attempting to exercise their contractual right to match the offers made to the league, which could lead to a complicated legal battle between the league and Warner Bros. Discovery, should the media giant choose to take legal action. And I think some fans are also just crushed about the potential loss of the "Inside The NBA" program on TNT, featuring personalities like Charles Barkley, which has really been a staple of basketball programming. So, I mean, it's possible that some of the personalities could move over to a new network, or to Amazon. But Barkley, for example, has said he is retiring...
MARTIN: Oh.
SIMONETTI: And he made that announcement far before the deals were finalized.
MARTIN: OK, before we let you go - the WNBA has gotten a lot of attention in recent months because of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. So what's the significance of this to the WNBA?
SIMONETTI: Yeah, there's been massive interest in the WNBA over the last couple months because of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Yesterday, the WNBA commissioner said this deal marked a monumental chapter in WNBA history. And she said the agreements will allow the league to continue to build a long-term future.
MARTIN: All right. That is Wall Street Journal reporter Isabella Simonetti. Isabella, thank you.
SIMONETTI: Thank you.
MARTIN: And I'd like to mention here that every media company we discussed in this interview is a financial supporter of NPR. But we cover them just as we do any newsmaker. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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