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Warner Bros. Discovery received paperwork from the NBA on Wednesday night, starting a five-day window where it can use its matching rights on a package of NBA games.
Warner Bros. Discovery intends to match Amazon’s package of games, which costs $1.8 billion per year.
It’s unclear if the NBA can reject Warner Bros. Discovery’s matching rights, and the league has prepared for a potential lawsuit in recent months.

Jaylen Brown, #7 of the Boston Celtics, shoots a three-point basket against the Dallas Mavericks during Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals at TD Garden in Boston on June 17, 2024.
Nathaniel S. Butler | National Basketball Association | Getty Images

With National Basketball Association media rights approaching final form, Warner Bros. Discovery is about to make its play.
The league has sent official terms of its proposed new media rights contacts to Warner Bros. Discovery, starting a five-day period where the media company can choose to match a package of broadcasting rights.

A TNT spokesperson confirmed the receipt of the documents and acknowledged the company is currently reviewing the terms. Warner Bros. Discovery received the contract framework on Wednesday night, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the details are private.
The media rights deal, as currently constructed, includes deals with Disney, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Amazon for three different packages of games, totaling $76 billion over 11 years, beginning with the 2025-26 season. It also includes WNBA games, which is worth $2.2 billion of the total sum.
Warner Bros. Discovery intends to match a package of games that has been slotted for Amazon, as CNBC first reported in May, which includes both playoff games and the the in-season tournament, according to the people familiar. Amazon signed a deal with the NBA to pay $1.8 billion per year for its package, they said.

Next steps unclear

When Warner Bros. Discovery formally announces its intention to match, it’s unclear what will happen next. The NBA may or may not have the right to reject Warner Bros. Discovery’s matching rights, and the league has been working with its lawyers for months in preparation of a potential lawsuit, according to people familiar with the matter.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s Turner Sports has been a broadcast partner of the NBA for almost 40 years. The company plans to argue that its matching rights — a holdover from its current media rights deal — applies to Amazon’s package of games, even though that package has been earmarked for a streaming-only service. Along with its cable network TNT, Warner Bros. Discovery owns Max, a competitor to Amazon’s Prime Video.

Still, Max has fewer subscribers than Prime Video, at about 100 million versus Prime’s more than 200 million monthly global subscribers. The streaming rights that are part of the Amazon package are global in nature, one of the people said.
TNT is also the home to “Inside the NBA,” the popular NBA studio show featuring Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal. Barkley has already said he plans to retire from the show after next season no matter the outcome of the media rights deal.

“I don’t have a sense of that,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver earlier this week at a press conference when asked what may or may not happen with regard to Warner Bros. Discovery or the NBA’s own network, NBA TV, which is operated by TNT Sports. “We’ll see.”
Losing the NBA would be a blow for Warner Bros. Discovery, which could lose about $600 million in profit from advertising and a potential decrease in cable affiliate fees if it loses the NBA, Wolfe Research media and entertainment analyst Peter Supino told MarketWatch earlier this week.
Warner Bros. Discovery shares have fallen 23% this year.
“I apologize that this has been a prolonged process, because I know they’re committed to their jobs,” Silver said last month of Warner Bros. Discovery employees who work on NBA programming. “I know people who work in this industry, it’s a large part of their identity and their family’s identity, and no one likes this uncertainty. I think it’s on the league office to bring these negotiations to a head and conclude them as quickly as we can.”
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC. More

Penn Entertainment will lay off about 100 employees as it focuses on growth for ESPN Bet. The company employs about 20,000 people.
CEO Jay Snowden told staff members in an internal email that it’s embarking on a new phase of growth in its interactive business, which includes ESPN Bet, a $2 billion branding partnership with Disney’s ESPN.
Investors are impatient for Penn to demonstrate its muscle with the rebranded sportsbook, and activist investor Donerail Group has called on the board to sell the casino company.

The ESPN Bet app on a smartphone arranged in New York, US, on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. 
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Penn Entertainment will lay off about 100 employees as it focuses on growth for ESPN Bet.
CEO Jay Snowden told staff members in an internal email that the changes will enhance operational efficiencies following its 2021 acquisition of Canadian media and gaming powerhouse theScore.

The company employs about 20,000 people.
“When PENN acquired theScore, we hit the ground running with the build-out of our proprietary tech stack and the migration of our sportsbook to theScore’s best-in-class-platform,” Snowden wrote in the memo, which was seen by CNBC. “This led us to temporarily set aside any potential organizational changes that would typically follow a major acquisition.”
Penn went on to say it’s embarking on a new phase of growth in its interactive business, which includes ESPN Bet, a $2 billion branding partnership with Disney’s ESPN. Snowden said the initiatives include product enhancements and deeper integration into ESPN’s ecosystem.
Investors are impatient for Penn to demonstrate its muscle with the rebranded sportsbook, and activist investor Donerail Group has called on the board to sell the casino company.
Rumors have swirled about the potential interest from many other online gaming and brick-and-mortar casino companies.

Truist gaming analyst Barry Jonas wrote in a note Thursday that a sale is unlikely in the near term because of the complexity of a transaction that would likely involve major divestitures.
Penn’s release of new ESPN Bet features this fall during football season should meaningfully improve its product, Jonas said, and a focus on costs indicate the company’s commitment to seeing its investment yield results.
Penn shares have plummeted 25% year to date. It has missed earnings expectations the last two quarters and lowered guidance.
“Investors continue to wonder what an ESPN Bet success could look like, and how much more investment (beyond what’s guided) it’ll take to reach,” Jonas notes.
Truist has a buy rating on Penn and a price target of $25.

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Ford Motor will expand production of its large Super Duty trucks to a Canadian plant that was previously set to be converted into an all-electric vehicle hub.
The new plans include investing about $3 billion to expand Super Duty production, including $2.3 billion at Ford’s Oakville Assembly Complex in Ontario, Canada, Ford said Thursday.
Ford said the Canadian plant, which is expected to come online in 2026, will add annual capacity of roughly 100,000 units of the highly profitable pickups.

2023 Ford Super Duty F-350 Limited

DETROIT – Ford Motor will expand production of its large Super Duty trucks to a Canadian plant that was previously set to be converted into an all-electric vehicle hub.
The new plans include investing about $3 billion to expand Super Duty production, including $2.3 billion at Ford’s Oakville Assembly Complex in Ontario, Canada, Ford said Thursday. The remaining investment will be used to increase production at supporting facilities in the U.S. and Canada, the company said.

Ford currently produces Super Duty trucks – the larger siblings of the F-150 full-size pickup used largely by commercial and business customers – at plants in Ohio and Kentucky.
Ford said the Canadian plant, which is expected to come online in 2026, will add capacity of roughly 100,000 units annually.
“Super Duty is a vital tool for businesses and people around the world and, even with our Kentucky Truck Plant and Ohio Assembly Plant running flat out, we can’t meet the demand,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a release. “This move benefits our customers and supercharges our Ford Pro commercial business.”

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Ford stock performance in 2024

Ford had previously announced plans to invest $1.3 billion into the Canadian plant for EV production. Those plans included a new three-row SUV, which the company recently delayed until 2027.
The announcement comes weeks after Farley said full electrification of “big, huge, enormous” vehicles such as Ford’s Super Duty trucks were “never going to make money.”

Ford said it has plans to “electrify” the next-generation of its Super Duty trucks, however it declined Thursday to disclose additional details.
The company said the move supports Farley’s Ford+ plan for profitable growth, including maximizing Ford’s manufacturing footprint. It’s the latest pullback for the restructuring plan involving EVs, however the automaker said it still plans to produce the three-row EV at an unspecified plant, starting in 2027.
The Ford+ plan initially focused heavily on EVs when it was announced in May 2021 during the company’s first investor day under Farley, who took over the helm of the automaker in October 2020.
At the time, there was significant optimism around all-electric vehicle adoption and potential profitability that have not materialized as quickly as many had expected.

Ford CEO Jim Farley speaks with reporters outside the company’s world headquarters on May 19 in Dearborn, Michigan, following the debut of the electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck
Michael Wayland / CNBC

Ford’s initial plan called for almost half of its global sales to be electric by 2030, fueled by more than $30 billion in investments in EVs through 2025. It’s unclear how much capital the company has spent on EVs to date. Its plans have changed several times, and its “Model e” EV unit lost $4.7 billion in 2023.
While Ford’s EV unit losses billions of dollars, its Ford Pro commercial business including its Super Duty trucks earned $7.2 billion before interest and taxes in 2023.
The Ford+ plan also included a target of 8% earnings before interest and tax, or EBIT, profit margin for the EV unit by the end of 2026. Ford withdrew that target earlier this year. It was would have been a massive turnaround from a profit margin of roughly negative 40% in 2022.
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