The Skydance era is upon us. And so will its sports properties.
With the TNT Sports CEO departing and CBS Sports’ David Berson set to take over the combined company’s sports portfolio, it wants, in writing, to compete with ESPN, Prime Video, YouTube, and maybe Netflix (when it actually tries) for mass eyeballs. And their league partners know this. But it’ll come at a cost. Because they’re looking to achieve $6b in cost savings across the company, they won’t be able to keep everything intact.
But as long as everything goes well with the combined Paramount+/HBO Max service and they renegotiate their sports packages, they can compete effectively with their competitors. Especially considering David Ellison is trying to push Skydance from a linear-focused company to a streaming, tech-focused company.
As of right now, CBS airs its games on the namesake network plus CBS Sports Network (but won’t stream on Paramount+?), CBS Sports HQ, CBS Sports Golazo Network, and Paramount+. TNT Sports is on TNT, TBS, truTV, and HBO Max.
But let’s evaluate the new Skydance Sports division’s biggest partners, mostly from the TNT side, and whether they should stay in business long term.
NFL
Make no mistake, the NFL, even if they are not completely deep into negotiations, will use their opt-out clause against all of their partners to determine where they want to optimize the league’s reach. Many on Wall Street speculate that either FOX, CBS, or NBC will lose their package, allowing Netflix or YouTube to join the packages.
For CBS, they’re safe. Don’t expect a breakup. Ellison and Berson will do anything to keep the packages without severely overpaying, which is why the negotiations earlier this year stalled. (NOTE: The NFL was an equity stakeholder of Skydance in the past; it’s unclear if they’re still a partner; Skydance also produces NFL Films content) FOX gets free money, especially from ads that they’ll get from the Roku deal. NBC feels like the odd man out with the company splitting from Comcast. But make no mistake, going against CBS, especially with lobbyists who are trying to get Congress and the FCC to slow the league’s expansion out of broadcast TV to go full-fledged to all streaming (which will be detrimental to the local stations).
MLB
The MLB on CBS. Welcome to 1992 again.
The MLB has seen a resurgence (more or less due to the Dodgers and Yankees’ World Series last year). And TBS has been a strong partner with the league since the start of the superstation days. But if there’s anything the MLB learned from the brief breakup of the ESPN package to 3 smaller packages to NBC, ESPN (slightly expanded since they’ve gotten MLB.tv rights), and Netflix, they want to expand the reach of the league.
Let’s be honest, the MLB has regressed a lot since making FOX the only broadcast platform for games, and as cord-cutting expands, many consumers have been cut off from most of the games that used to air on TBS. That has since changed with NBC airing Sunday night games during the summer after the NBA season.
The MLB will begin negotiations for rights after this postseason, going into the next season, as the current contract for all of its partners expires in 2028. Of all the partners the league works with, TBS has the fewest games in its inventory. Nor will CBS have time in disposal to air them. (Unless it’s Saturday and Sunday afternoon summer games after March Madness) Whether the combined CBS/TNT Sports wants to continue at the same amount or more remains to be seen, but I don’t think they want to be out of the MLB business. Not while the league is hotter than it’s been in years.
NHL
Now this is where I’m conflicted at the NHL. Is it popular? Yes. Is it worth going past 2028? I don’t know.
This is not to say the league is not valuable by the contract TNT signed. 72 regular-season games, half of the Stanley Cup playoffs, rotating Stanley Cup Finals, Classics, and streaming rights for HBO Max. That right there is sizable for a superservice. Especially since the other half is currently held by ESPN.
But according to many reports, the NHL really has no leverage going into this media rights cycle, even after ratings climbed from last year. They are jealous of the ~$76b NBA deal with NBC/ESPN/Prime, and they are planning on an expansion. And if those negotiations go south quickly, the league may have to look elsewhere for a partner, like maybe a reunion with NBC or DAZN, which is willing to expand.
Other Leagues?
*Shrug Emoji*?
One of the biggest things going for Skydance is its $6b in cost-cutting and synergies. They aren’t primarily focused only on layoffs, but possibly on programming costs.
CBS Sports, even pre-Skydance, isn’t as bloated in redundancies. All of the rights assumed by CBS have value to the network, and its partners know this. As for TNT Sports, it’s all over for any of the smaller properties.
ICYMI, when the NBA was leaving business with TNT because of Zaslav’s ego trip over “We don’t need the NBA,” the sports group scrambled to find filler rights put in place to cover the loss. That came from tennis, shared college football regular and playoff games sublicensed from ESPN, AEW, and other “growth leagues.” But David Ellison doesn’t have time for growth leagues. So it’s very likely they’ll be cut or sold off to anyone who needs sports rights. The CW perhaps?
As for college football, it’s a toss-up. The College Football Playoff Committee (CFP) and ESPN are finalizing a deal to expand from 12 teams to 24 in 2027, following an increase from 4 in 2024. A mistake? Maybe. College fans aren’t fond of it, considering the playoff spots will mostly consist of SEC, BIG 10, and ACC power schools for the top 16-20 teams and fillers for the rest of the spots. Is it that lucrative for Skydance Sports to stay on or relinquish them back to ESPN? It’ll be fun to stick around if it moves to CBS. Probably bleeds into the all-inclusivity of ESPN’s college football coverage.
For the other conferences airing regular-season games on TNT, I think they’ll continue to do so there unless CBS wants to start flexing out to its network. Soccer will stay, especially on CBS. UEFA is extremely popular on Paramount+. Goodbye AEW? Tony Khan said Ellison is happy to partner with AEW, but his father, Nick Khan, will not want it near TKO’s UFC product (TKO owns WWE). Maybe ego will go out the way?
NASCAR is the one partner CBS will be happy to do business with again. The CEO will attend a meeting with Berson on possibly airing races on CBS. Honestly, consider it done.
The Problem with the Convergence
Rights my friends.
Cable providers negotiated the WBD package and determined that nothing would change for the networks’ rights. And with the concessions with the States that they have to keep negotiations for the MTV Networks and WB/Discovery networks (as we’ll call it) separate for 5 years, Skydance has to keep things provisioned for a while. They can’t go diluting TNT just yet because that’ll tank providers’ fees, and Skydance can’t use CBS’s leverage just yet.
Even so, what will the market look like then? Will the values of the new MLB and NHL deal fall even less in their favor? Will the expanded CFP hurt the value of Skydance and, in turn, ESPN and the power conferences? And we haven’t talked about international rights. How will that play out? Time will tell. But again, it’s not the CBS and most of the international TNT/WBD sports assets that’ll be mostly condensed; it’ll be the unneeded leagues TNT signed in the states to “alleviate” the loss of NBA rights.
The sports world has evolved in ways that leave customers frustrated by how fragmented the rights are separated and by the cost of watching their favorite sports and teams. Yet it’s for these partners to capitalize on where the audience is watching or else ratings will show the advertisers (who basically fund those billion-dollar packages) that they’re not watching this platform or sport.
Final Verdict
Yes: NFL, NCAA Basketball Tournament, MLB, NHL, NASCAR, both CBS’ and TNT’s big soccer properties, UFC, The Masters, BIG 10 football, BIG 12 football/basketball games, WNBA, PGA
Maybe: PBR, CBS’ and TNT’s Tennis, BIG EAST, Mountain West, PAC-12, AEW, smaller college football conferences
No: TNT’s Golf, Unrivaled, Savannah Bananas, Big3 (sorry Ice Cube), Sailing
