NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the league negotiated hard with Warner Bros. Discovery on media rights before talks fell through.Getty Images
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said there was “absolutely” a “very good chance” the league was going to come to a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, according to Alex Sherman of CNBC.com. Silver said, “We negotiated hard with them over several months, and they negotiated with us. And as I said, we just couldn’t reach a deal at the end, but that was before we had the extensive negotiations with NBC.” He added, “We went through a long period, even before the exclusive negotiating period, where we had dozens of conversations with our current partners, talking about what was working in the deal, what changes we might like to see, how we all saw the future landscape for media rights.” Silver noted for successful partnerships, “you work together to solve problems, and particularly when media is changing so quickly, technology is changing.” Silver said over the course of long-term deals, including the 11-year media rights agreement, “the one thing that you can be certain of is that things will change.” Silver added that when changes happen, “ideally in these partnerships, people aren’t pulling out the contract and saying page eight, paragraph three, you’re saying you understand the spirit of what you were trying to accomplish there, and that you’re willing to adjust based on changes that might have been unpredictable.” Silver: “When you’re actually looking at the contract, that’s a sign that the partnership isn’t going as well when people are bringing in the lawyers, and it’s part of doing business as well. But absolutely relationships matter” (CNBC.com, 10/24).