Warner Bros Discovery extends media partnership with NBA for 11 years

(Reuters) -Warner Bros Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD) and the National Basketball Association have agreed to extend their partnership for 11 more years, resolving recent disputes tied to the NBA’s media agreements, the entertainment giant said on Monday.

Shares of Warner Bros Discovery rose about 5% in early trading.

The company’s four-decade streak of airing NBA games on its Turner Sports network came under threat in July when the basketball body struck a new 11-year deal valued at $77 billion with Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS)’s ESPN, Comcast-owned NBCUniversal and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN).

Reuters reported in July that Warner would sue NBA in New York after the league rejected its matching bid for TV broadcasting rights.

Under the terms of the new deal, Warner’s TNT Sports will get a global license to create, produce and distribute new and existing NBA content across its platforms.

Warner and sports network ESPN have also entered into a partnership, the companies said on Monday. TNT Sports will continue to fully create and produce “Inside the NBA”, with the show being distributed on ESPN and ABC.

Rights to the widely watched professional basketball league are a prized possession for media companies as sports content has retained a reliable and loyal audience even as traditional TV businesses lose millions of subscribers to cord-cutting.