World
Why NBA Is Seeking Dismissal of TBS, WBD Lawsuit
In a comprehensive memorandum of law urging New York Judge Joel M. Cohen to dismiss TBS and Warner Bros. Discovery’s breach of contract lawsuit against the NBA, league attorneys Friday blasted the case as defying basic contract law principles and misconstruing a right to match.
Last month, TBS and WBD sued in the aftermath of the NBA concluding that the plaintiffs failed to match an offer by Amazon to broadcast games from 2025-26 through 2035-36. The NBA officially recognized Amazon Prime Video, Disney’s ABC/ESPN and NBC/Peacock as the league’s next media partners, and they’ll pay $76.9 billion over the course of the deals. TBS (in part through TNT) will no longer be the league’s primary media partner, a role it has enjoyed for 35 years. But TBS and WBD say they invoked a right to match Amazon’s offer and thus should remain tied to the league.
The motion to dismiss memorandum, authored by Robert A. Sacks and other attorneys from Sullivan & Cromwell as well as by NBA executives Rick Buchanan and Dan Spillane, asserts TBS and WBD’s theory fails for several reasons.
First, the NBA argues TBS’s matching rights—which are contained in a 2014 contract between TBS and the NBA granting TBS the right to distribute NBA games on the TNT linear cable television network through the 2024–2025 season—doesn’t authorize a match of Amazon’s offer. Amazon’s delivery of games is through streaming, whereas linear means TV channels that are “programmed in a time sequence, with content offered in a particular order and at a specific time.”
The 2014 contract also didn’t give TBS the right to distribute games on the Internet, the league points out. In contrast, Amazon’s offer says it “is the NBA’s first ‘streaming-only package” and makes clear Amazon is receiving “no over-the-air broadcast, cable, satellite or other linear television rights.”
The NBA acknowledges that NBA games are streamed on Max, which is owned by WBD, but maintains that is a fact without relevant legal significance in this dispute. The league says the “source of the rights” to stream games on Max is not the NBA/TBS 2014 contract, but instead a separate contract between NBA Media Ventures and Bleacher Report and that—most relevantly here—lacks a matching provision.
Second, the NBA maintains that even if TBS could match Amazon’s offer, its attempt to do so was an air ball. The league says TBS cannot “fundamentally change the method of distribution required by Amazon’s offer,” namely by moving games that would be streamed to linear cable TV. The NBA notes that TBS could have matched NBCUniversal’s “separate, more expensive third-party offer,” since it contemplates linear TV distribution rights. Instead, TBS tried to match the less expensive Amazon offer and, the NBA contends, unilaterally rewrote that offer’s terms.
Third, the NBA maintains that instead of matching Amazon’s offer, TBS took Amazon’s offer, rewrote key terms to advance TBS’s interests and then announced it had accepted the revised version. The NBA says that’s not a match, but instead a new document that neither Amazon nor the NBA would accept and that, by itself, doesn’t do anything. The matching provision from the 2014 agreement, the NBA contends, “unambiguously required” that TBS match each term of Amazon’s offer.
The league says TBS revised eight of 27 sections, altered 11 defined terms, crossed out about 300 words and brought in more than 270 new words. One alleged change involves the financial security of payments. Amazon agreed to maintain an escrow account that contains three years of rights fees, an amount in the ballpark of $5.4 billion since Amazon will pay about $1.8 billion a year. These fees will be automatically deducted. TBS, in contrast, has (as the NBA tells it) agreed to provide the league “with syndicated letters of credit that the NBA can access only if TBS’s payments are late.”
To be clear, a defendant’s motion to dismiss is an advocacy document, meaning, like a plaintiff’s complaint, it offers a one-sided view of the key issues. Attorneys for TBS and WBD will have the chance to attempt to rebut the NBA’s arguments. As Sportico detailed, the plaintiffs have insisted that the technological distinction between streaming and linear is not as bright line as the NBA paints it, including because (they claim) 70% of Prime video watching “occurs on a television” and because, like Amazon Prime, TNT and Max are distributed via the Internet. TBS and WBD thus insist they could and did match Amazon’s offer, despite the NBA’s insistence they couldn’t and didn’t.
Legal disputes over matching provisions have a long history in the sports industry, among other industries. They usually center on the degree to which a “match” can change an offer before the changes become too substantial that it is no longer a match. Here, the NBA asserts not only has TBS dramatically altered Amazon’s offer but that, as a matter of first principle, TBS literally couldn’t match Amazon’s offer.
World
Investors brace for a bigger backlash from Middle East war
World
Tel Aviv analyst shelters from 30 missile sirens in 48 hours, says Iran ‘won’t recover’
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The past 48 hours in Tel Aviv have been unlike anything seen before, a leading security analyst has said, as sirens blared amid missile threats following Operation Epic Fury and U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran.
“We are facing a biblical event — nothing less,” Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute, told Fox News Digital, speaking from his shelter in the city.
Like many Israelis, Michael said he had spent hours in reinforced rooms during the ongoing barrage, adding that he was “very experienced in this.”
“But this all requires time and determination, and I do hope that Trump will also have them both,” he said, speaking shortly after the president released a video message stating that the military operation would continue “until all of our objectives are achieved.”
Explosions from projectile interceptions by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system over Tel Aviv. (JACK GUEZ / AFP via Getty Images)
“Trump is the only one who can make the change — and that change will impact the entire region and the international order for years to come,” Michael added.
As of Sunday, Tel Aviv remained under a state of emergency following Iranian missile attacks that caused casualties and widespread damage.
According to The Associated Press, Iranian missile and drone strikes have killed approximately 11 Israeli civilians and wounded dozens more in retaliation for the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran.
Shrapnel from missile impacts damaged at least 40 buildings in Tel Aviv, and authorities reported at least one death in the area from falling debris.
The Philippine Embassy in Israel confirmed the death of a Filipino national after a missile strike hit Tel Aviv on Saturday.
TOMAHAWKS, B-2 STEALTH BOMBERS AND ATTACK DRONES POUND OVER 1,000 IRANIAN TARGETS IN 24-HOUR BLITZ
People take shelter as Iran launched missiles and drones towards Israel following the US-Israeli attacks. ( Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“We enter our shelter once the siren is heard and stay there until the Home Front Command announces that we can leave,” Michael said.
“Usually, it is about 20 to 30 minutes — unless there are further sirens during our stay. Since yesterday morning, it has happened around 30 times.”
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog also visited an impact site in Tel Aviv Sunday, delivering a message of resilience.
“The people of Israel and the people of Iran can live in peace. The region can live in peace. But what undermines peace time and again is terror instigated by this Iranian regime,” Herzog said.
EXILED IRANIAN CROWN PRINCE SAYS US STRIKES MARK ‘BEGINNING OF THE VERY END’ FOR REGIME
Israeli emergency service officer walks past building debris at the scene of a Iranian missile attack. (Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP via Getty Images)
Following the reported killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and roughly 40 senior Iranian officials, Iran formed a provisional leadership council.
Iran named Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, President Masoud Pezeshkian and Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i to lead roles.
“The Supreme Leader did not complete the necessary groundwork regarding his own succession,” Michael added.
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“Pezeshkian will face very troubling challenges due to their heavy losses, severe disruptions to control and command systems, and the massive bombing and attacks across Iran, including Tehran,” he said.
“Even if this regime doesn’t collapse, it will never be able to reconstitute itself, recover or return to its previous position,” Michael added.
World
Israel FM says Europe too divided, slams Spanish PM
Israeli minister Gideon Sa’ar said Europe “does not have unified position” on what role it should play in Iran as European ministers sought to establish a joint approach Sunday.
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As Israel and the United States conducted a joint military strike on Iran, leading to the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Europe was kept on the sidelines.
EU member states did not participate in the operation and, in some cases, they were not informed prior as it is customary among strategic allies.
Asked whether Israel sought to keep Europe on the margins, Sa’ar said internal divisions within EU member states had kept them out of critical exchanges of operational details, unlike the United States, which the minister described as his country’s greatest ally.
“In Europe, you have all kinds of approaches,” he told Euronews. “You have countries like the Czech Republic which is strongly supporting this operation and then you have Spain, which is standing with all the tyrants of the world.”
On Saturday, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez was among the most critical voices in Europe, suggesting the US-Israeli strikes on Iran risk plunging the region into total war.
“We reject the unilateral military action of the United States and Israel, which represents an escalation and contributes to a more uncertain and hostile international order,” Sánchez said Saturday. The Spanish PM reiterated that message on Sunday.
“We urge for de-escalation and call to respect international law in all conflicts,” Sánchez added. “You can be against a heinous regime, like the Iranian regime, while also rejecting a military intervention that is unjustified, dangerous and outside of international law.”
Sa’aar said Israel considers the operation “fully justified” citing the right to self-defense from a regime that “has called for the destruction of Israel” and lashed at the Spanish prime minister for sending an “anti-Israeli, anti-American message.”
“Read the statement, they are standing with Iran!” he added.
When asked if any of his European counterparts had manifested an interest in joining the military operation or provide support on the ground, Sa’ar said he held multiple exchanges with European ministers over the weekend and suggested that “if others want to join, they will know have to convey the message.”
On Sunday, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen appeared to back regime change in Iran in line with Israel and the US, saying that the “risk of further escalation is real. This is why a credible transition in Iran is urgently needed” in comments on Sunday.
Sa’ar told Euronews said the strategic strikes and the elimination of Khamenei alongside top regime commanders could “create the conditions to weaken the regime enough to allow the Iranians to take their future into their own hands”.
“The future leadership of Iran should be determined by the Iranian people through free elections. Our only requirement is that whoever comes to power in Iran must not pursue the destruction of Israel,” he said.
Watch the full interview on Euronews from 8pm CET
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