The NBA And Warner Bros Appear To Be In A Standoff Over A $75 Billion Price Tag For Media Rights Which Could Mean No More Games On TNT

Kevin Mazur. Getty Images.

Woah woah woah woah, everyone take a deep breath here before you make a decision that could cause both me and every single person that watches and enjoys Inside The NBA a whole lot of inconvenience. 

I won't pretend to be an expert on the negotiations of TV rights or anything of that nature because, by all accounts, I'm a moron. I'm sure there are complex aspects to how those things get ironed out, but at the same time, I don't really care about any of that shit. I just want to be able to watch high level basketball with relative ease while also being able to enjoy the Inside The NBA crew every week. I don't ask for much, so I am going to kindly ask everyone to figure it the hell out.

Is $75B a huge number? Is Adam Silver being kind of a dick for demanding that much? How the hell should I know. There are role players making $30M a year in the NBA right now so all of these numbers don't even seem real to me. Whether it's $75B or $65B or $100B I can say for certain that I don't give a shit. Oh, rich people want other rich people to pay a shit ton for their product? Cool I guess. I don't care about any of that stuff, I care about what it means for me as the consumer.

I don't know about anyone else, but the one thing I really don't like about the NFL games on Amazon for example is you can't really change channels. You're locked into that shit the whole way through. Sure you may have alternate screens in your living room, but that's not the point. I don't want to be locked into one app all night just to watch NBA games, especially big national games like we get on TNT. I can't have games on the Amazon Prime app while also having League Pass on my YouTubeTV. I'm to be expected to click out of the app, reload it, and do that all night? Fuck that noise. I know this probably makes me sound old, but enough already.

Also, what does this mean for guys like Kevin Harlan? Is he going to be allowed to broadcast wherever the NBA goes if they leave TNT? I'd hope so but again I have no idea how any of that works.

What I find interesting about this news is this little fact

Well this is awkward. What's the point of a long term deal if the very network they work for isn't going to carry NBA games anymore? I would like to assume there's some sort of legal language in that extension that says these guys get to go free if TNT doesn't own the rights anymore, and if that's the case and we still actually get the Inside The NBA crew, but it's on like NBC or some shit then fine. But if this game of hardball not only makes it more of a pain in the ass to watch games AND we lose the Inside crew? 

No Adam Silver, I'm afraid that's simply too much.

My hope is this is all just a negotiating tactic where Warner Bros just doesn't want to pay the initial price, and if that's the case, fine. We've all haggled a time or two in our lives. But I'm also expecting other networks like Disney/Amazon/Apple to throw insane cash at the NBA if they can snag those rights from TNT. If this somehow brings back Roundball Rock and the games are still able to be watched through my YouTubeTV, cool. If not and this becomes a major inconvenience, I'll do what pretty much everyone does.

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I'll complain about it on Twitter while ultimately doing whatever it is I have to do in order to watch these games. That's what happens I guess when this sport and league has you by the balls. I'll watch wherever, but I won't be happy about it.

But please, I am begging the universe. Don't take Inside The NBA from us