Warner Bros. Discovery Acquires US Rights to French Open
Warner Bros. Discovery is adding the U.S. rights to the French Open to its sports portfolio beginning in 2025, an individual familiar with the matter told TheWrap.
The tennis tournament, which is also known as Roland-Garros, will air on Warner’s cable networks, Max and its Bleacher Report digital sports hub. According to the Athletic, the deal is valued at $650 million over 10 years.
Currently, the French Open airs live on NBC Sports and Peacock. The agreement comes as WBD already owns the European rights to the French Open through its Eurosport pay-TV networks.
A spokesperson for Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment. Variety was the first to report this story.
The French Open deal comes as Warner Bros. Discovery has had some discussions with the NBA for a fourth package of games, an individual familiar with the matter told TheWrap. If those talks are unsuccessful, WBD could also try to enforce its matching rights.
Without the NBA, WBD could look to sublicense more sports, similar to the recent agreement it struck with ESPN for College Football Playoff games, or it could bid for other sports rights that come up for renewal, such as the UFC.
In addition to the NBA, Warner currently has rights to NASCAR, the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball and the March Madness college basketball tournament. It is also currently in exclusive negotiations with All Elite Wrestling.
The NBA is currently closing in on deals with NBC, Amazon and Disney that could see them score $76 billion in media revenue over 11 years, The Wall Street Journal reported.
NBCUniversal is expected to pay the NBA an average of $2.5 billion a year to show around 100 games per season – half of which would air exclusively on Peacock, an individual familiar with the terms confirmed to TheWrap. The games would air on NBC on Tuesdays and select Sundays to avoid conflicting with the network’s “Sunday Night Football” schedule.
The Journal reports that Amazon would pay $1.8 billion for regular season and playoff games, the new NBA in-season tournament and “play-in” games where teams compete for the final playoff spots. The tech giant would also be given a share of the conference finals, which the media partners would split in a rotation. Meanwhile, Disney would reportedly pay about $2.6 billion per year to continue to air the NBA Finals, up from its current $1.5 billion. The company would get fewer games than its current deal and ESPN would air games on its upcoming direct-to-consumer service slated to launch in 2025.
The deals, which would also include rights to WNBA telecasts, would go into effect after the 2024-25 season. The new agreements could translate to a 2.5 times increase in annual fees for the NBA to an average of nearly $7 billion, according to The Journal.
Representatives for NBC, Amazon, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment. The NBA did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
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