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Full Version: WarnerMedia (AT&T) wants to expand into sports
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Quote:The telecommunications giant, through its WarnerMedia subsidiary “will certainly continue to be a significant player in the sports-rights arena,” says Jeff Zucker, who was just named chairman of WarnerMedia’s news and sports properties, in an interview Monday. “WarnerMedia will continue to be aggressive when appropriate and strategic,” he adds.

The company already enjoys a significant alliance with the National Basketball Association. The two are so close that WarnerMedia is an integral part of the NBA’s digital strategy. What’s more, AT&T has struck up an e-sports league with WME/ICM and shares the rights to broadcast the NCAA’s Final Four basketball championship with CBS. Zucker says he has already made outreach to the commissioners of the major sports leagues.

But there could be opportunities to add more in months to come. Many traditional and digital media companies are focused on the next cycle of rights to broadcast NFL football, which will start to come up for renewal, first at ESPN in 2021 and at NBC, CBS and Fox the following year. Might AT&T be interested? “We are not going to take anything off the table,” says Zucker.

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/jeff-zu...203154922/


Perhaps Aresco should give him a call. 04-deal
TruTV nearly wound up with the NHL a few years back. I know Turner already has some MLB rights, but to me the lowest hanging fruit is to wrest away Sunday Night Baseball from ESPN - this helps with making a year-round presence for sports.

Then, go after college football. The American can pretty much run three games on TruTV, one on TBS, and one on TNT (this may have to be juggled a little bit during the baseball postseason). Grab a bowl game to add some non-AAC viewers.

Make Bleacher Report the default streaming platform, and maybe even brand your sports news segments under it as well, which gives you content for the CNN branch of the company.
If they can land an NFL package then that's a game-changer. ESPN would probably give up the MNF slot if they could get a Sunday package to put on ABC. There are a lot of interesting possibilities.

And I do think they'll probably expand into college sports to a greater degree as well.
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