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2024 NBA Offseason Thread

One of the oft-discussed “poison pills” in Amazon’s new NBA agreement has come into focus as the tech giant will reportedly pay three years of media rights fees to the NBA upfront in an effort to stave off a potential match from Warner Bros. Discovery. The upfront payment was first reported by Bill Simmons of The Ringer.

A three-year upfront payment would total around $5.85b, a figure that debt-riddled WBD would unlikely be able to come up with. Monday is the final day WBD can submit a match.

Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal reported Monday that WBD will likely try to negotiate a settlement with the league. Such a settlement could take several different avenues, including allowing WBD to produce games for Amazon, allowing WBD to continue operating NBA TV, or even letting WBD license Inside the NBA to Amazon for a hefty fee.

As for when the NBA’s new set of rights agreements expire in 2037, the league will not have to worry about matching rights. Per a report in The Athletic on Friday, the league’s new agreements with Disney, NBC, and Amazon do not contain matching rights similar to the ones currently being exercised by WBD. (SBJ, 7.22) (The Athletic, 7.19)
 
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