WBD to broadcast CFP games in 5-year sub-licensing deal with ESPN

Warner Bros. Discovery has “struck a deal with rival ESPN” that will see WBD sub-license a “small number” of  C ollege Football Playoffgames over a five-year period starting later this year, according to sources cited by Brian Steinberg of VARIETY. TNT will be the “lead media network” for the broadcast of two first-round games this year and next, and then will add two quarterfinal games starting in 2026. The deal surfaces as WBD remains “enmeshed in critical discussions with the NBA about renewing long-standing media rights.” Sources said that talks with ESPN commenced about “two or three months ago.” Steinberg noted the pact will “put college football on one of Warner’s cable networks for the first time since a four-year stint that ended in 2006.” A source said that ESPN “will produce all the games,” but TNT Sports “will be able to create programming around the CFP games and make its own decisions about talent and some aspects of presentation.” The source also said that ESPN broadcasters “will guide viewers through the games themselves” (VARIETY, 5/22).

NOT CONNECTED: THE ATHLETIC’s Andrew Marchand cited sources that said that the move for CFP is “unrelated” to the ongoing “tenuous negotiations” WBD is having with the NBA and that the CFP agreement “would have happened regardless of where the talks with the NBA stood.” The full financial terms of the agreement between TNT and ESPN are "not yet known," but during its negotiations with the CFP, Disney-owned ESPN had put a $25M average value on each first-round game. Marchand noted ESPN will “get to choose the first two first-round games before TNT gets to make its selection.” And by working with WBD, ESPN is “able to keep the entire playoff under the Venu umbrella.” However the NBA talks finish, TNT Sports Chair Luis Silberwasser “continues to add to its rights.” Besides the existing agreements with the NBA,MLB, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and theNHL, Silbwasser has done deals with U.S. men’s and women’s soccer,NASCARand, now, the CFP (THE ATHLETIC, 5/22).