Early this year, Warner Bros Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav has concluded his long relationship with the company and the National Basketball Association. Now he may be setting the stage to end our relationship with sports for a full extent.
WBD announced on Monday that it was split into two companies. It reported that the first concept CNBC reported that it took steam in April. One company, temporarily called Streaming and Studios, consists of Warner Bros. TV, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, DC Studio, HBO and HBO Max. Another now known as the Global Network is our remaining assets, including the European legacy cable network, TNT Sports, digital products, and free air channels.
Zaslav will become CEO of streaming and studios. Gunnar Wiedenfels, current Chief Financial Officer of Warner Bros Discovery, will become CEO of Global Networks.
The divorce raises the question of where TNT’s live sports rights will land as part of the same company without Warner Bros.’s streaming portfolio.
During a conference call Monday, Zaslav said Wiedenfels and his team will decide to decide where to license TNT Sports Programming in the streaming and studio business, or someone else, to a future location.
Currently, all TNT Sports are listed on the flagship streaming service of HBO Max, Warner Bros. Discovery. Zaslav said US sports are not the main drivers of signing up for HBO Max, suggesting that it makes sense for TNT Sports to work consciously on the streets from streaming services.
“In the US, sports weren’t that important,” Zaslav told investors on Monday. “We see that, but it wasn’t a real driver for us. So, it continues to be at HBO Max, but the global network business will assess what’s best for that.”
HBO Max continues its sports license for existing transactions. Still, Wiedenfels has options on how to monetize TNT’s future streaming and digital sports rights. He was able to enter into license agreements with different media companies for live sports that appear on the Turner Network (TNT, TBS, TRUTV), including the NCAA’s March Madness, French Open, NASCAR, Major League Baseball, and the National Hockey League.
“U.S. sports rights reside in a global network, and its management teams decide how to monetize streaming and digital rights over time,” Wiedenfels said. “Internationally, sports, as they do today, coexist primarily in both linear and streaming.”
Or he could decide to integrate TNT sports like the future with another entity Comcast Spin-out, Versant. Versant CEO Mark Lazarus told CNBC Sport last month that he was interested in bidding on the sport’s rights to earn distribution weight with PAY-TV operators. Getting a TNT sports can be a big step in that direction.
If Wiedenfels chooses to integrate, after the separation is made, you should weigh the tax benefits of selling assets. Warner Bros Discovery noted that the split is tax-free, but Weedenfels was highlighted in Monday’s call that transactions can begin as soon as the expected separation occurs by mid-2026.
“On the tax front, I said this before, I absolutely wanted to be clear. Once this deal closes, both companies will be free and clear,” Weedenfels said. “There’s no minimum time.”
A Bersant spokesman declined to comment.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of CNBC. Once the spin-out is complete, Versant will become CNBC’s parent company.
