TNT Sports is getting into the women’s basketball business, cutting a multi-year rights deal with the new women’s 3-on-3 basketball league Unrivaled. TNT parent company Warner Bros. Discovery is also making an investment in the league, giving it equity.
The deal — which was brokered by former ESPN president John Skipper and former Turner chief David Levy — will see Unrivaled games run on TNT on Mondays and Fridays beginning Jan. 17, and on TruTV on Saturdays. All the games will also stream on the Max streaming service.
Unrivaled is among the buzziest startup sports leagues in the market, thanks to the boom in women’s sports, and the fact that is has lined up a roster of WNBA all-stars, including co-founders Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier. All players will also receive equity in the league.
The deal will mean that regardless of what happens with Warner Bros. Discovery’s lawsuit against the NBA, the company will have live basketball for the foreseeable future.
“The history they have with basketball is second to none,” Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell says in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, adding that the deal gives the league “long term financial stability.”
“Media rights is the end goal for every league, not just a startup League, that that’s what pays the bills the most,” he adds.
And Unrivaled benefitted from the fact that TNT Sports has been seeking whatever sports rights it can get, with its NBA future very much uncertain.
“From the standpoint of timing is everything, it’s nice that ultimately, they’re building up their their sports portfolio,” says Levy.
Unrivaled, meanwhile, is betting that TNT Sports, with its long history televising basketball games and its prowess developing shoulder programming like Inside the NBA (Unrivaled will produce its games itself in conjunction with Mediapro North America) can help grow the league, with studio shows and digital content.
“They know how to do studio shows better than anybody, in my opinion,” Levy says. “So to be able to go back to that and bring this new league into that infrastructure while we’re producing the games, they’re going to give us some insight and some help, and we want to make sure those games fit culturally into their environment as well.”
“They get to help story tell outside the games… they have Bleacher Report and House of highlights under that umbrella,” Bazzell adds. “Hundreds of millions of social followers for us, that’s an additional way to tap into a fan base that we’re trying to garner so aside from just the dollars of investment, it was more about the alignment of the long term growth of this property, not just looking at this as a transactional partnership, but more of a everyone rowing in the same direction.”
Unrivaled is launching after a breakout year for women’s sports, and particularly women’s basketball, with college games and the NBA shattering ratings records. The result is a growing shared belief in the future of women’s athletics on TV.
“I didn’t know in my lifetime that the women’s Final Four would out deliver the men’s Final Four, but they did, and you’re seeing numbers that are now out-delivering some of the NBA games from the WNBA games themselves,” Levy says, “So no one’s doing this because it’s just good to do, they’re doing it because it’s good ROI.”
TNT Sports and Warner Bros. Discovery have been scooping up a slew of rights for TNT and Max, including deals with wrestling circuit AEW, college football, and an NIL-focused college basketball tournament.
“Our TNT Sports portfolio centers on premium live sports and our media and equity partnership
with Unrivaled deepens our commitment to further expanding the depth of top tier women’s sports
programming we offer our fans and presents an opportunity for us to shape and amplify the
continued growth of women’s basketball,” said Luis Silberwasser, chairman & CEO of TNT
Sports.