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Warner Bros. Discovery is suing the NBA to keep distributing the league’s games.
The company is attempting to use matching rights on a package of games earmarked for Amazon Prime Video, which the NBA chose as a media partner along with Walt Disney and NBCUniversal.
The NBA sent Warner Bros. Discovery a letter Wednesday informing it that the league doesn’t believe its matching rights are valid for a streaming-only package of games.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver addresses media at the Thomas & Mack Center on July 16, 2024, in Las Vegas.
Mick Akers | Las Vegas Review-journal | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

Warner Bros. Discovery sued the NBA on Friday as it tries to maintain broadcast rights for a package of live games.
“Given the NBA’s unjustified rejection of our matching of a third-party offer, we have taken legal action to enforce our rights,” the company’s TNT Sports unit said in a statement. “We strongly believe this is not just our contractual right, but also in the best interest of fans who want to keep watching our industry-leading NBA content with the choice and flexibility we offer them through our widely distributed WBD video-first distribution platforms — including TNT and Max.”

The media company seeks to prevent the NBA from awarding the rights to Amazon, whose games package Warner Bros. Discovery tried to match, or aims to win monetary damages.
The NBA said Wednesday it had reached agreements with Disney, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Amazon on three different packages of games, ending its nearly 40-year relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery’s Turner Sports. The 11-year media rights deal is worth roughly $77 billion — a massive increase over the previous agreement as the value of live sports booms.
In response to the suit, NBA spokesman Mike Bass said “Warner Bros. Discovery’s claims are without merit and our lawyers will address them.”
Warner Bros. Discovery said earlier this week it submitted paperwork to the league to match one of the packages, which people familiar with the matter identified as the $1.8 billion-per-year group of games earmarked for Amazon. The tech giant’s deal includes regular-season games, the in-season tournament and some playoff games.
The NBA granted Warner Bros. Discovery matching rights when it signed its previous media deal in 2014. The provision is meant to give an incumbent company the right of last refusal to maintain its position as a media partner.

But Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to match the Amazon package, rather than the $2.5 billion-per-year NBCUniversal agreement, caused the league to say Wednesday that the matching rights are invalid. Warner Bros. Discovery’s offer for that package involves airing the NBA games on its cable network TNT and simulcasting them on its streaming service, Max. That’s not an apples-to-apples comparison to Amazon Prime Video, which is a streaming-only service, the league argued.
Warner Bros. Discovery argued in a court filing Friday that its matching rights should still apply to the Amazon package because many of the games in that package previously aired on cable TV.
“The MRE (Matching Rights Exhibit) further provides that, “[i]n the event that TBS Matches a Third Party Offer that includes Cable Rights” and no other Incumbent matches, then TBS shall have the exclusive right and obligation to exercise the Cable Rights provided for (and on the same terms set forth) in the Third Party Offer,” Warner Bros. Discovery wrote in its court filing. “That is exactly what happened here: Amazon made an offer for Cable Rights as defined in the MRE, and TBS matched it. But, in breach of the Agreement, the NBA has refused to honor TBS’s match.” TBS is a cable TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
In a letter the NBA sent to Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday, the league pointed to the contractual language of the 2014 matching rights as its reason for rejecting the offer.
The NBA cited the clause: “In the event that an incumbent matches a third party offer that provides for the exercise of game rights via any specific form of combined audio and video distribution, such incumbent shall have the right and obligation to exercise such game rights only via the specified form of combined audio and video distribution (e.g. if the specific form of combined audio and video distribution is internet distribution, a matching incumbent may not exercise such games rights via television distribution).”
CNBC’s David Faber on Thursday reported Warner Bros. Discovery had moved to sue the NBA.

NBA’s value to Turner

In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said that his company did not “have to have the NBA” if the economics weren’t sound.
 “With sport, we’re a renter,” Zaslav said at a November 2022 investor conference. “That’s not as good of a business.”
Still, Friday’s lawsuit expounded on the value of the NBA to Turner Sports. Owning NBA rights is valuable to the health of Warner Bros. Discovery’s cable TV business, which has suffered in recent years as millions of Americans cancel traditional pay TV in favor of a bundle of streaming services.
“NBA games drive significant viewership and ratings, as consumers are more likely to watch games live, in real time. This, in turn, affects the price TBS and WBD can charge to their advertisers and downstream distributors that license TNT for transmission to their customers,” the company wrote in the complaint. “NBA distribution rights thus give both TBS and WBD the ability to grow their brands and reach a larger group of consumers that only NBA games bring. NBA telecast rights also give TBS and WBD a competitive advantage over other programmers, particularly when negotiating with other leagues for sports rights.”
Warner Bros. Discovery argued the NBA brings “intangible and incalculable benefits” to the company’s business and asked for “preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to prohibit the NBA from licensing these unique and irreplaceable rights [to Amazon],” while adding that if “equitable relief is not granted,” it expects “monetary damages” from the NBA.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
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The Federal Aviation Administration has approved SpaceX to resume flights of its mainstay Falcon 9 rocket after being grounded about two weeks ago following a rare inflight failure.
Elon Musk’s company plans to launch its next mission carrying satellites as soon as Saturday.
SpaceX cited the rocket’s brief hiatus as due to its rapid launch pace and “unprecedented levels of flight data” from nearly a decade of more than 300 consecutive successful orbital launches.

A Falcon 9 rocket launches a Starlink mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Jan. 31, 2023.

The Federal Aviation Administration has approved SpaceX to resume flights of its mainstay Falcon 9 rocket after a brief grounding, with Elon Musk’s company planning to launch its next mission carrying satellites as soon as Saturday.
The FAA clearance came just 15 days after the rocket suffered a rare inflight failure while in orbit during a launch of Starlink satellites.

“The FAA determined no public safety issues were involved” in the July 11 mishap, the regulator said in a statement to CNBC late Thursday, allowing the rocket to “return to flight operations while the overall investigation remains open.”
The hiatus was unusually brief following a flight failure, but SpaceX argued the rocket’s rapid launch pace — on average every two to three days this year — and “unprecedented levels of flight data” from nearly a decade of more than 300 consecutive successful orbital launches supported a quicker return to service.
“Safety and reliability are at the core of SpaceX’s operations. It would not have been possible to achieve our current cadence without this focus,” the company wrote in a statement on its website on Thursday.

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During the July 11 launch, the rocket’s lower first stage, or booster — powered by nine engines — operated as expected before returning to land. But the rocket’s upper second stage, which has a single engine, failed to reignite as planned and was unable to complete its mission.
SpaceX traced the cause of the midflight failure to a tube known as a “sense line,” a part of the rocket’s system for liquid oxygen, one of the propellants used to power the engine of the second stage. A loose clamp for that tube and the intense vibration of the rocket’s engine led to cracking, the company said. That cracked sense line resulted in a leak of liquid oxygen, causing damage to the rocket’s engine when it attempted to restart in space.

The company said it would remove the tube and its related pressure sensor from the rocket’s upper stage engine “for near term” launches, noting that it is not a critical component for safety. The company plans to rely on alternative sensors in the meantime as it is currently testing a longer-term design change under the FAA’s oversight.
“An additional qualification review, inspection, and scrub of all sense lines and clamps on the active booster fleet led to a proactive replacement in select locations,” SpaceX added.

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The WNBA and its media partners will reassess the value of its media rights after the 2028 season based on new inputs such as TV ratings, league expansion and the length of the season.
The WNBA has exploded in popularity this season with the introduction of rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.
The WNBA will take in a minimum average of $200 million per year from its media partners Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon over the next 11 years.

Connecticut Sun forward Brionna Jones (left) and Los Angeles Sparks forward Cameron Brink (22) fight for ball possession during a WNBA game between the Sparks and the Sun on June 18, 2024, at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT.
Anthony Nesmith | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images

The WNBA’s new media rights deal includes a price reevaluation after the 2028 season to account for the league’s rising popularity, according to people familiar with the agreement.
The WNBA deal has been negotiated within a broader $77 billion NBA agreement with media partners announced earlier this week. The WNBA-specific contract is worth $2.2 billion for 11 seasons — an average of $200 million per year.

The new trio of NBA partners — Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon — didn’t assign specific values to the WNBA as part of their initial bids for packages of games (worth $2.6 billion, $2.5 billion and $1.8 billion, respectively), according to the people familiar, who asked not to speak publicly because the details are private.
Instead, the NBA worked with Endeavor Group’s media consulting team, led by Karen Brodkin and Hillary Mandel, to assess the value of WNBA rights, said the people. Endeavor’s recommendation valued the rights at about $125 million per year, said the people.
The NBA pushed to get more money for the women’s league, given the infusion of interest driven by star rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, and ultimately convinced its media partners to allocate an average of $200 million per year for the league, according to the people.
Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon have agreed to reassess that value after the 2028 season, the people said, with the $200 million-per-year cost serving as a floor value for the league’s rights.
The league will again work with a third party to assess a possible increase in rights, based on TV ratings, expansion and possible changes to the length of the regular season or playoffs, said the people. The media partners aren’t forced to pay more based on the conclusion of the reevaluation, but they will be incentivized to do so, the people said.

A little more than halfway through its current season, the WNBA has already had 16 nationally televised games break the 1 million viewership mark — a league record.
“To open the season we have seen our highest attendance in 26 years and repeatedly set viewership records,” said WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert last week. “A lot of our teams are up triple digits in attendance.”
The WNBA will also have a chance to raise additional revenue by striking outside partnerships with other media companies, including local broadcast station groups such as Scripps and Ion, and participating in an advertising revenue share if certain metrics are hit, according to people familiar with the deal constructs. The outside media deals could bring in another $60 million in annual revenue, the league estimates.
— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo and Jess Golden contributed to this report.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

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Disney and Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” snared $38.5 million in Thursday previews.
The latest entrant in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the most anticipated releases of 2024 and the first R-rated film in the comic book franchise.
The film, staring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, is expected to tally between $160 million and $180 million during its domestic debut.

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman star in Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

Disney and Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” has secured $38.5 million in Thursday previews and is on pace for a domestic debut north of $150 million, which would be a record for an R-rated film.
The latest entrant in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the most anticipated releases of 2024 and the first R-rated film in the comic book franchise. The preview haul was the eighth largest ever, and the highest for an R-rated release.

“Thursday previews have become an integral part of the release strategy for most major studio releases,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “Thursday previews not only provide early access to eager fans who can’t wait to see the latest blockbuster on the big screen ahead of their official debut, but also provide a key indicator of the potential opening weekend box office to the studios, analysts and journalists alike.”
Blockbuster comic book and franchise films often see significantly higher Thursday night ticket sales, as fans seek to see the film early on its opening weekend to avoid spoilers. Thursday night preview numbers are folded into Friday’s box office haul and calculated as part of a film’s three-day opening weekend.

Highest Thursday night preview ticket sales

“Avengers: Endgame” — $60 million
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” — $57 million
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” — $50 million
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” — $45 million
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” — $43.5 million
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” — $40 million
“Avengers: Infinity War” — $39 million
“Deadpool & Wolverine” — $38.5 million
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” — $36 million

Source: Comscore, Disney

“Deadpool & Wolverine” is expected to tally between $160 million and $180 million at the domestic box office during its debut.
This haul would mark the highest opening weekend for a film in 2024 and the biggest debut of an R-rated film ever.

“Deadpool and Wolverine” is the 34th film to be released under the MCU banner and the first to garner an R-rating from the Motion Picture Association. The previous two Deadpool films, both rated R, were produced and released through 20th Century Fox. Disney acquired the company in 2019, bringing the X-Men and Fantastic Four back into the larger Marvel portfolio.
Movie theater operators told CNBC they do not expect the R-rating to deter moviegoers. In fact, it is likely a selling point for the film.
“‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ might prove to be a jack of all trades for Disney and Marvel after the studios eased off the gas pedal with fewer releases across theatrical and streaming recently,” said Shawn Robbins, founder and owner of Box Office Theory. “That may be parlayed into renewed interest for this next event-level story, which also isn’t meant to be a film requiring homework for the casual or uninitiated.”
“Deadpool & Wolverine” is the first MCU film to be released since November of last year and will be the only 2024 release from Marvel Studios. Currently, there are four MCU releases slated for 2025, one for 2026 and one for 2027.
However, Marvel is set to present a panel at this weekend’s San Diego Comic Con and during Disney’s D23 Expo in August, so the calendar could be altered. Changes could come after the firing of Kang actor Jonathan Majors — who was set to play the major villain in the coming sequence of films — and production delays caused by last year’s actors and writers strikes.

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It’s unclear if merger deregulation will jumpstart consolidation among larger media companies.
In the last five years, every large media merger has led to tens of billions in lost value for shareholders.
Even if big deals haven’t worked, it’s only fair to judge them against what would have happened had no consolidation occurred, according to Paul, Weiss global chair of M&A Rob Kindler.

David Zaslav at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 9, 2024 in Sun Valley, Idaho.
David Grogan | CNBC

Comcast Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts had a not-so-subtle message this week for Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav: If you’re selling, I’m not buying.
“Instead of engaging in a process to buy content companies, we have focused primarily on organic opportunities like the NBA,” Roberts said Tuesday during Comcast’s second-quarter earnings conference call.

If you ask Zaslav, though, the reason Roberts and other potential buyers of media assets aren’t interested is because the government has scared them away.
Zaslav earlier this month publicly stated a theme that many legacy media executives have privately said for years: The current U.S. administration has stymied deal-making, and business leaders are desperate for the next U.S. president to usher in more mergers and acquisitions.
“We just need an opportunity for deregulation, so companies can consolidate and do what we need to be even better,” Zaslav told reporters at Allen & Co.’s annual Sun Valley conference.
Roberts’s disinterest and Zaslav’s lament shine a light on a fundamental question that may determine the future of the media and entertainment industry: Do the biggest media and technology companies want to buy smaller rivals for their content and can’t do so because of overly stringent regulations, or are they simply uninterested in the assets?
Exhibit A: During months of Paramount Global sale conversations, controlling shareholder Shari Redstone engaged with dozens of potential buyers before landing on a deal with Skydance Media, a relatively small studio that earlier this month agreed to buy a controlling stake in Paramount without acquiring the entire company.

Shari Redstone at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 10, 2024 in Sun Valley, Idaho.
David Grogan | CNBC

Redstone received scant interest from big media and tech players who could have used her company’s movie and TV studio and library to bolster their own streaming services, according to people familiar with the matter. The sale process proved the largest media and technology didn’t want Paramount.
Other companies, such as Starz, AMC Networks and Vice Media, have also searched for deeper-pocketed buyers and come up empty.
There are two plausible explanations for why larger media and technology companies aren’t interested, said Rob Kindler, global chair of M&A at the law firm Paul, Weiss.
“Either they don’t want the assets, or they’ve decided the regulatory hurdles are too high,” Kindler said.
A push toward deregulation will give the media industry more clarity. It’s possible technology and the largest entertainment companies have sworn off significant media assets as acquisition targets given the governmental red tape around antitrust, national security and antiquated communications rules.
Or, perhaps, legacy media companies are simply undesirable assets to own.

Deal or no deal

Zaslav’s perspective stems from his own experience. He extended the life of his previous company, Discovery Communications — and probably his own tenure running a media company — by merging it with AT&T’s WarnerMedia in 2022. Without a deal, Discovery would have wallowed as a subscale content provider and owner of declining cable networks.
Now, Zaslav sees the same dynamic repeating with Warner Bros. Discovery, whose shares have fallen 36% in the past year as the company focuses on turning its flagship streaming service Max into a globally profitable business and grapples with the possibility of losing NBA media rights after nearly 40 years as a partner.
One way of doing that would be to find an acquirer with a trillion-dollar valuation to help pay for expensive content, such as Amazon, Apple or Google. Zaslav could also merge Warner Bros. Discovery with another legacy media company, such as Paramount Global, Fox or Disney, or NBCUniversal, if it were spun off from Comcast.
Zaslav’s perspective on deregulation in media — that a lighter touch would inherently mean more big-money deals — is tantamount to life or death for legacy media.

David Zaslav at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 9, 2024 in Sun Valley, Idaho.
David Grogan | CNBC

His stance is that consolidation is the only path forward for not only his own company but all legacy media companies that aren’t Apple, Google and Amazon, according to a person familiar with his thinking.
His message could be persuasive with politicians who want to save local news and tamp down the power of big technology. If the biggest companies in the world throw tens of billions of dollars at the most popular live sports rights, it’s possible, if not probable, that the legacy media industry is on a slow death march to obscurity.
In accordance, Warner Bros. Discovery has sought to sue the NBA as a last-gasp effort to maintain the company’s status as a platform to air live games after the league chose the deeper-pocketed, larger Amazon as its partner of choice.
Zaslav declined to comment for this story.

Terrible track record

The problem for Zaslav is that while big media mergers may keep the industry competitive, they haven’t been winners for shareholders. In recent years, a handful of big media deals have happened — and the results have been ugly.
In 2018, Zaslav’s Discovery completed its acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive for $14.6 billion. Three months later, AT&T closed its deal to acquire Time Warner for $85.4 billion.
In 2022, the combined Discovery-Scripps then merged with WarnerMedia valuing the company at $43 billion.
Today, the entire market capitalization of Warner Bros. Discovery is about $20 billion. The various mergers have saddled the company with about $40 billion in debt.
Other big media deals haven’t worked out much better. Viacom and CBS merged in 2019, valuing the combined company at about $30 billion. Paramount Global (the new name of the combined company) now has a market capitalization of about $7 billion.
Disney acquired the majority of Fox’s assets for $71 billion in 2019. There’s little doubt the value of the assets have dramatically declined in the past five years. Disney’s market capitalization is lower now than it was when the deal closed.
As an offshoot of the Disney-Fox deal, Comcast acquired Sky for $39 billion. That, too, appears to have been a significant overpayment. Comcast wrote down $8.6 billion of Sky’s value in 2022.
While it’s clear none of these mergers have been winners, it’s only fair to judge them versus what would have happened to the companies had they stayed independent, said Kindler.
“While it appears that many of these deals have not worked well, what would have happened if they hadn’t done these deals? That is the real question,” Kindler said.
There aren’t many smaller media and entertainment companies that have attempted go-it-alone strategies in recent years, but of the ones that have (or, have because they couldn’t find a buyer), the results have been rough for shareholders. Shares of AMC Networks, owner of cable networks including AMC, IFC, We TV, and Sundance TV, are down about 80% in the last five years. Lionsgate stock is down more than 35% in the same period.
The S&P 500 has gained 81% over the same time span.
It’s also possible the transactions have failed because leadership has made poor strategic decisions. Media companies largely pivoted their businesses to streaming in 2019 and 2020, spending billions on new content, only to reverse course in recent years when investors stopped rewarding unprofitable subscription growth.

Hazy regulatory environment

There’s no doubt executives are concerned regulators may block deals that would have previously sailed through the approval process, said Kindler.
“Twenty years ago, the first call when people were doing a deal was to a banker to see if it made financial sense. Now, the first call is always to a lawyer,” said Kindler, who used to be the global chair of Morgan Stanley’s M&A practice. “It’s just changed completely because the first question that everyone is asking is what are the regulatory implications.”
What’s less clear is if there will be a major difference between a Republican or Democratic administration in 2024 and beyond. While former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice allowed Disney to acquire Fox with limited pushback, his administration sued to block AT&T’s deal for Time Warner.
There’s also been mixed results in President Joe Biden’s administration. A federal judge blocked the $2.2 billion sale of Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House on antitrust grounds last year, but Amazon’s $8.5 billion deal for MGM got approval.
Further confusing matters, Trump’s vice president nominee, JD Vance, has publicly said he largely supports Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan’s aggressive rhetoric when it comes to limiting corporate power through mergers.
“I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration who is doing a pretty good job, and that sets me apart from most of my Republican colleagues,” Vance said earlier this year at RemedyFest, a discussion forum on regulatory challenges. “You want to promote as much competition as possible, and you actually want to separate all of these market verticals as much as possible. That’s where I think antitrust is probably the most useful way to think about a solution to what we face.”
The now-de facto Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris will likely be quizzed on her regulatory philosophies in the coming months by the business community.
Even if Zaslav is right, and deal volume is down because of regulatory concerns, “it’s unclear if anything will change significantly with a new president,” said Kindler.

More bark than bite

Zaslav’s notion that regulatory fears have hampered consolidation may be more fear-based than reality, said Mark Boidman, head of global media at Solomon Partners.
“While we recognize the regulatory environment has shifted, we are still seeing both small and large-scale transactions occur across the media industry,” said Boidman. “Despite any perceived uptick in regulatory scrutiny, deals across the media landscape are still getting done.”
While Khan’s FTC rhetoric has been aggressive, the number of enforcement actions resulting in merging parties abandoning or restructuring transactions has not increased, Boidman noted, citing 2022 FTC data showing that only 1.5% of total mergers that year were altered or failed to complete from regulatory issues. That’s below the 2.6% average of the past 10 years.
From Sept. 30, 2022 to Sept. 30, 2023, federal agencies challenged just 17 transactions — the lowest number of merger enforcement actions in the last 20 years, according to the law firm Covington & Burling.
Still, when isolating just for media deals, the volume of deals completed as measured by dollar value has noticeably slumped, illustrating the slowdown in larger transactions. Last year’s total media deal volume was $51 billion, and 2022’s was $35 billion, well below the median of $85 billion from the seven years prior, according to Dealogic.
The rut appears likely to continue, with just $22 billion in media deals announced thus far in 2024.
Moreover, simply judging transactions based on whether or not they ultimately get approved might not be the best metric. Legacy media companies may be scared away from attempting transformational transactions because the time of approval is so lengthy. Skydance Media and Paramount Global guessed their merger would be approved by September 2025, more than a year after the deal’s announcement. The long lag time puts both acquirer and seller in an undesirable state of paralysis, unable to fully plan a future together.
— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report. More

NBCUniversal is looking to capitalize on the Paris Summer Olympics for its four-year-old streaming service, Peacock.
This will be the first entire Summer Games offered on Peacock, and NBCUniversal has also planned for other exclusive content surrounding the Olympics for the streaming service.
Live sports have been especially popular on Peacock, which has seen subscriber upticks around big events, and executives are expecting the Paris Olympics to have a similar effect.

The Paris 2024 logo representing the Olympic Games is displayed near the Eiffel Tower in Paris on April 21, 2024, in anticipation of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.
Chesnot | Getty Images

The Paris Olympics will offer Comcast another chance to lift its streaming platform, Peacock, as it aims to not only attract more subscribers but keep them.
Although this Olympics is the third since Peacock debuted in 2020, it’s becoming the first real opportunity for Comcast’s NBCUniversal, CNBC’s parent company, to use its long-standing U.S. media rights to boost the streaming service.

“In some ways, Comcast is starting with a clean slate, in that this will be the first Olympics for Peacock since the games were blown up by the pandemic and distorted time zones,” said analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson. “But they’ve also had the opportunity to learn quite a bit, so they will be much better prepared for capitalizing on the Olympics than before.”
There are a handful of reasons this Olympics looks better for Peacock than recent Games, such as the favorable time zone — Paris is six hours ahead of the East Coast in the U.S., versus 13 hours for Tokyo in 2021. The end of the restrictions from the early days of the Covid pandemic is also a big factor, along with the allure of the host city of Paris.
But most importantly, Peacock will air the entirety of the Summer Olympics for the first time.
“It was different times, since Peacock didn’t have the rights to show all of the Olympics back in 2021,” said Molly Solomon, NBC’s executive producer of the Olympics. “But we’re in a different era of streaming with rights deals. Peacock is now the streaming home of the Olympics, and there’s no limits if you’re a super fan or casual fan, since it will all be available on Peacock.”
Some fans were confused during the 2021 Summer Games in Tokyo about what exactly was available live on the streaming platform.

“I don’t know that there is a great comparison to be made,” said Kelly Campbell, president of Peacock. “This will be the most comprehensive Olympic destination in U.S. history.”
The Olympics come at an important moment for Peacock, as legacy media companies are pushing for their streaming services to retain customers and become profitable in a tumultuous industry landscape. Live sports, in particular, have drawn the most viewership to traditional TV and streaming.

Olympics TV gold

Simone Biles of the United States in action on the balance beam during the final round at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Ariake Gymnastics Centre, Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 3, 2021.
Lindsey Wasson | Reuters

The Olympics have long been a big part of NBCUniversal’s sports portfolio. The relationship dates back to 1936, when NBC Radio covered the events. NBC first broadcast the games during the 1964 Summer Olympics.
Paris marks NBC’s 18th Olympic Games. Comcast paid $7.65 billion to renew its media rights deal through 2032.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were held in 2021 due to the Covid pandemic, drew the lowest-ever audience for the Summer Games. The Beijing Olympics in 2022 had the lowest viewership ever for the Winter Games, which are notably smaller than the Summer Olympics.
Between the favorable time difference and the backdrop of France this year — for instance, the opening ceremony will air Friday afternoon from along the Seine River, the equestrian teams will compete at the Palace of Versailles, and beach volleyball will be played next to the Eiffel Tower — NBCUniversal and others are betting on a return to big viewership for the Olympics.
A majority of U.S consumers are expecting to watch the Olympics this year, with 60% likely to stream the Games and 47% planning to watch on traditional TV, according to Numerator’s recent survey of more than 10,000 consumers.
Also, advertisers have been flocking to the Paris Games. NBCUniversal said in April it had already sold more than $1.2 billion in advertising for the Summer Games, a record for the Olympics.
Ad-supported streamers, including Peacock, and digital companies have seen an influx of ad dollars as the market rebounds.
While competitions will play out live during the day in the U.S., NBC has branded the evening as “Primetime in Paris” and will replay big events along with in-depth programming such as interviews.
Overall, there will be more hours of the Olympics on broadcast network NBC than in previous years, and cable networks including USA will also feature a lot of live content. Every event will be live on Peacock and available to replay, so fans can watch the entirety of the Games without a traditional cable TV subscription.
Plus, the U.S. audience is likely to tune in for events such as men’s and women’s basketball, which both include star-studded lineups; Simone Biles’ final run with the gymnastics team, and the U.S. swim team’s heated rivalry with Australia.
“I’m sure basketball will tell its own story in terms of ratings and everyone watching, but [the] no-guaranteed-big-victory part of this is something that will keep everyone watching when Team USA plays in men’s basketball,” NBC prime-time and daytime Olympic host Mike Tirico said during a press call this week, referencing the fact that the U.S. men’s basketball team faces a tougher path than ever to a gold medal.

Peacock’s sports playbook

Grant Fisher and Abdihamid Nur compete in the men’s 5,000-meter final at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Track & Field Trials at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, June 30, 2024.
Patrick Smith | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

Live sports remains the last opportunity to attract large TV audiences and for streaming services to sign up and keep customers.
This has been especially true for Peacock.
The streaming platform — which costs $7.99 with ads or $13.99 commercial-free — has benefited from its parent company’s portfolio of sports rights. The National Football League, English Premier League, Nascar, Big Ten college football, golf and the Spanish-language broadcast of the World Cup have all played a role in keeping customers.
Earlier this year, Comcast said the exclusive NFL Wild Card game on Peacock helped to add more customers than expected.
“We sort of used the Wild Card game as a hook to bring in millions of new subscribers but then also used that opportunity to expose them to new content,” said Campbell. After a big cohort of viewers comes in for a major sporting event, she said, 90% of what they watch after that is entertainment.
Over a three-day period, an estimated 3 million people signed up to watch Peacock’s NFL Wild Card game, according to TV data provider Antenna. Comcast had said it retained more customers than expected from the game, and Antenna’s data showed 71% of those customers remained as subscribers seven weeks after the game.
However, the longevity of those customers remains to be seen. Peacock had 33 million paid customers as of June 30, the company reported earlier this week. The total was down about 500,000 customers from the period ending March 31.
The prior Olympic Games that aired on Peacock also led to a bump in sign-ups, according to Antenna data.
NBCUniversal has also deepened its bet on sports, announcing this week an 11-year media rights deal with the NBA, which includes exclusive games for Peacock, beginning in the 2025-2026 season.
“None of this promises that Peacock is actually going to be a successful business,” said Moffett. “It doesn’t change the fact that streaming is almost certainly a worse business than linear TV used to be.”
“But I think it’s now much clearer than it was before that Peacock’s plan is all around sports,” he said.
In addition to thousands of hours of live events, Peacock will also offer replays and its own original content. That includes a watch-along show led by Alex Cooper, who hosts the popular podcast “Call Her Daddy,” and “Gold Zone,” hosted by Scott Hanson of “NFL Red Zone” and in a similar format.
“I wanted to try a ‘Watch With’ companion program, where a popular personality would be watching along with the audience,” said Solomon. The expectation is that fans of Cooper, who is a former collegiate soccer athlete, will tune into the program, as well as Olympics fans. “We have chosen some of the biggest events in the Olympics, and hope to create new fans.”
Peacock will also introduce an artificial intelligence function for the Olympics. Users will be able to get daily recaps in the voice of Al Michaels, the longtime Sunday Night Football host who is now part of Amazon’s Thursday Night Football broadcast.
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC. More

LVMH’s sponsorship deal took a year of negotiations and ultimately landed at about $160 million of investment from the parent company of brands like Loewe, TAG Heuer and Dom Perignon.
The partnership is on display throughout the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, which officially kicks off on Friday. 
“It’s not mainly to show the brands. It’s to show the spirit, the spirit of our group and the spirit of the country,” said Arnault. “We show the power of this country in the world.”

For the first time a luxury brand is an Olympic sponsor. And it’s not just one brand, it’s the empire of LVMH.
“We tried to find a way with the Olympic Committee – to be able to show maybe something that has never been done before with the Olympics,” LVMH Chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview at Dior’s flagship store this week in Paris.

LVMH’s sponsorship deal took a year of negotiations and ultimately landed at about $160 million of investment from the parent company of brands like Celine, Louis Vuitton, Loewe, Tiffany, TAG Heuer and Dom Perignon.
The partnership is on display throughout the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, which officially kicks off on Friday. 
LVMH-owned Chaumet, whose Parisian roots date back to 1812, is the first jeweler in Olympic and Paralympic Game history to design the medals. Housing the medals are trunks made by LVMH brand Louis Vuitton. In the hospitality suites, the company’s Moët Hennessy wines and spirits will be served. French teams will wear uniforms designed by LVMH’s Berluti for the opening ceremony.
“It’s not mainly to show the brands. It’s to show the spirit, the spirit of our group and the spirit of the country,” said Arnault. “We show the power of this country in the world.”

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of LVMH, Bernard Arnault attends the Viva Technology show at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on May 23, 2024 in Paris, France. 
Chesnot | Getty Images

Arnault says sports is and will continue to be a key part of the company’s future. 

“We have been always close to sport, because sport has values that we share,” he said.

Luxury market under pressure

LVMH’s Olympic sponsorship comes at a time when consumers in the U.S. and Asia are under pressure.
The weakness of the Japanese Yen is sending coveted Chinese luxury shoppers flocking to Japan to buy LVMH goods at a discounted price.
 LVMH, seen as a bellwether for the luxury sector overall, led a selloff among global luxury stocks this week after its second-quarter sales came in under analyst expectations.

In its half-year report, LVMH reported sales in Japan up 57% for the second quarter, while the rest of Asia was down 14%.
“We are in a period where there is a lot of uncertainty on geopolitical grounds in the world, with some wars, some economic problems with inflation, with interest rates, and so on. But I am still quite optimistic long term,” said Arnault. “That trend midterm, will continue with ups and downs.”

Pre-Olympics lunch

On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted a pre-Olympics lunch with executives from around the globe, including Arnault, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky.
On CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Friday morning, Chesky told Sorkin one of the key topics of conversation at the lunch was the “changing nature of the economy probably powered by AI and robotics and what that is going to mean for the next generation.”
The lunch, hosted one day before the Opening Ceremony, is part of a broader effort by the Elysee to encourage investment in France, meanwhile uncertainty remains over the ruling government following the snap election in July.
Ahead of the lunch, Arnault told Sorkin the last time he and Musk had spoken, it was about an idea to put Louis Vuitton inside a rocket. 
“We have to think,” said Arnault. “I’m afraid he will ask me to go with him in the rocket.”
Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032. More

Bristol Myers Squibb reported second-quarter earnings and revenue that topped expectations and raised its full-year guidance.
Revenue growth was primarily driven by the company’s blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis and a portfolio of drugs it expects to help it deliver long-term growth.
The results come as Bristol Myers moves to cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2025 and reinvest that money into key drug brands and research and development programs.

The Bristol Myers Squibb research and development center at Cambridge Crossing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Dec. 27, 2023.
Adam Glanzman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Bristol Myers Squibb on Friday reported second-quarter earnings and revenue that topped expectations and raised its full-year guidance as the drugmaker moves to slash costs.
The pharmaceutical giant raised its full-year revenue forecast to an increase in the “upper end” of the low single-digit range. That compares to its previous guidance in April of a low single-digit increase in sales. 

The company also raised its 2024 adjusted earnings guidance to 60 cents to 90 cents per share, up from a previous forecast of 40 cents to 70 cents per share. 
Shares of Bristol Myers rose nearly 5% in premarket trading Friday following the results.
The results come as Bristol Myers moves to cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2025 and reinvest that money into key drug brands and research and development programs. In April, the company said that will involve laying off more than 2,000 employees, culling some drug programs and consolidating its sites, among other efforts. 
Here is what Bristol Myers reported for the second quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: 

Earnings per share: $2.07 adjusted vs. loss of $1.63 expected
Revenue: $12.2 billion vs. $11.55 billion expected 

The pharmaceutical giant’s revenue rose 9% from the same period a year ago to $12.2 billion. 

Bristol Myers posted net income of $1.68 billion, or 83 cents per share, for the second quarter. That compares to net income of $2.07 billion, or 99 cents per share, for the year-earlier period. 
Excluding certain items, its adjusted earnings per share was $2.07 for the quarter. 
The second-quarter sales increase came primarily from the company’s blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis and a portfolio of drugs it expects to help it deliver long-term growth. Among those treatments is the cancer drug Opdivo, which raked in higher-than-expected sales for the quarter. 
Revenue from Bristol Myers’ blood cancer drug Revlimid also topped analysts’ estimates for the period despite facing competition from cheaper generics. 
The drugmaker faces pressure to launch new drugs and offset the loss of revenue from Revlimid and other top-selling treatments that will eventually lose exclusivity on the market, including Eliquis and Opdivo. 
Sales of Eliquis could also take a hit in 2026, when a new price for the drug goes into effect for certain Medicare patients following negotiations with the federal government. Those price talks, a key provision of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, will end at the beginning of August.

New drug portfolio, Eliquis post growth 

Eliquis booked $3.42 billion in sales for the quarter, up 7% from the year-ago period. That was in line with analysts’ expectations for the drug, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.
The blood thinner, which Bristol Myers shares with Pfizer, is expected to lose market exclusivity by 2028.

George Frey | Reuters

Revlimid took in $1.35 billion in sales, down 8% from the same period a year ago due to generic competition. Still, that surpassed analysts’ revenue expectations of $1.09 billion for the treatment, according to FactSet. 
Revenue from the company’s so-called “growth portfolio” was mainly driven by higher demand for Opdivo, which generated $2.39 billion in sales for the quarter. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected that treatment to bring in $2.29 billion in revenue. 
Anemia drug Reblozyl, advanced melanoma treatment Opdualag and Camzyos, a drug for a certain heart condition, also helped fuel the growth portfolio’s revenue during the second quarter. All three medications posted sales above analysts’ expectations, according to FactSet estimates. 
Meanwhile, Abecma, a cell therapy for a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma, drew $95 million in sales for the quarter. Analysts had expected $95.8 million in revenue.  More