A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman, which brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. Breaking news Before we jump into our exclusive interview with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver this week, some breaking news this morning … TKO Group , the company that owns WWE and UFC, is acquiring three sports-related businesses from Endeavor Group for $3.25 billion. The deal is all-stock, so it will increase Endeavor's total ownership percentage in TKO Group to 59%. Endeavor is already the majority owner of TKO Group. The businesses are Professional Bull Riders (PBR), On Location, and IMG. PBR is the world's largest bull riding league. It fits with WWE and UFC as professional sporting leagues that operate live events. PBR puts on more than 200 events annually for more than 1 million fans. On Location provides luxury hospitality for major sporting events including the Super Bowl, the Ryder Cup, March Madness, the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics. IMG packages and sells media rights and brand partnerships, providing strategic consultancy on the biggest TV deals for the NFL, English Premier League, National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, and many other leagues, including UFC, WWE, and PBR. The acquisition of IMG does not include "businesses associated with the IMG brand in licensing, models, and tennis representation, nor IMG's full events portfolio," according to TKO. "Sports unify us and have never been in more demand," said Mark Shapiro, the president and chief operating officer of both Endeavor and TKO, in an interview. "At TKO, we're primarily interested in league ownership if that exists and businesses that can power our current sports ecosystem. That could be ticket sales, hospitality, consumer products, media rights expertise. That's what we're getting in IMG and On Location." Click here for the full CNBC.com story on the deal. Adam Silver: 'We just couldn't reach a deal' This week starts a new chapter for the CNBC Sport newsletter – the introduction of our weekly videocast. It will replace The Four Questions Q & A as our "On The Record" section moving forward. With the NBA season now upon us, our inaugural guest is NBA Commissioner Adam Silver . We sat down for a 34-minute interview, which you can watch below in its entirety. For the first time since striking the NBA's $77 billion media rights deal in July, Silver delved into the frustration he felt in not being able to reach a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery during the exclusive negotiating period between the league and its incumbent media providers, which ended April 22 . The NBA signed deals with Disney , Comcast 's NBCUniversal and Amazon to be its new media partners, beginning in the 2025 season. The latter two are new partners (new-ish, at least – NBC is back after losing NBA rights in 2002 ). Silver told me that he thought there "was a very good chance" the NBA would reach a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery in the exclusivity window. That surprised me. I thought the league likely already knew it wanted one new partner with a broadcast network (NBCUniversal owns NBC; Warner Bros. Discovery only owns cable networks) given the decline in cable TV subscriptions , along with a second Big Tech streamer with international reach. I figured the league probably suggested to Warner Bros. Discovery that it at least wanted to speak with other partners before renewing a deal. But Silver said that wasn't the case. "There was just never a meeting of the minds between us and Warner Bros. Discovery," 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." As an incumbent provider (and NBA partner for nearly 40 years), Warner Bros. Discovery's TNT Sports is now suing the league , arguing it paid for so-called matching rights during its previous deal with the league in 2014. Those rights allow Warner Bros. Discovery to match the price another company is paying for a package of games – essentially a right of last refusal. Warner Bros. Discovery wants to use its matching rights on the $1.8 billion per year package of games earmarked for Amazon. That's less than the $2.45 billion NBCUniversal has agreed to pay or the $2.62 billion Disney is paying, according to people familiar with the matter. The NBA is arguing Warner Bros. Discovery can't use its matching rights on a package because those games set to go to Amazon are exclusive for a streaming-only service. Warner Bros. Discovery would simulcast the games on its own streaming service (Max), but would also air the games on its cable network TNT. Silver noted that while Turner Sports has had a relationship with the NBA for decades, WarnerMedia's current leadership, led by CEO David Zaslav and TNT Sports CEO Luis Silberwasser , is relatively new. Zaslav took over Turner Sports as part of the 2022 merger between Discovery Communications and WarnerMedia. He named Silberwasser to lead sports that year. Relationships matter, Silver said. "It wasn't a longtime relationship with the people currently running Warner Brothers Discovery," said Silver. "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, and that you're willing to adjust based on changes that might have been unpredictable.So when you're actually looking at the contract, that's a sign that the partnership isn't going as well." Losing Warner Bros. Discovery is a particularly big deal to fans because it may mean the end of TNT's "Inside The NBA," starring Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith , Shaquille O'Neal and Ernie Johnson . The show provides plenty of viral moments for the league and is generally considered to be the gold standard of sports studio shows. Silver addressed the potential loss of the program. "We take all those things into consideration," Silver said. "I would just say I didn't weigh losing 'Inside the NBA' more than we necessarily weighed losing that long term partnership with TNT." On the record With NBA Commissioner Adam Silver... Silver spoke to me about a lot of issues. We addressed the upcoming presidential election: "Whether it's global politics, whether it's U.S. politics, divisiveness is bad for our sport. I think it is bad for most businesses. You want to see people's willingness to deal with each other respectfully….You see sports becoming more political. That worries me, and I know we've contributed to it." On league parity vs. dynasties: "The data is absolutely crystal clear that the more competition you have, the more it drives interest in the league. If you have a 30-team league and you only have four teams that are competing for championships, of course, the fans of those teams love that, and the fans of those teams that have been historic dynasties have disproportionate amounts of fans, not surprisingly. So the change will happen over time. But we think competition is great." On what changes may be coming to the league: "It's some changes, potentially, in officiating. Take tennis, for example, where technology called Hawk-Eye, which is made by Sony, where they've removed at the US Open, the line judges. It's all automated, and you see the animation picture – The ball comes down, it's in, or out, or on the line. For example, the ball goes out of bounds off a player. At any given time, there are 100 fingers on the floor, other body parts as well, that the ball can go off of to go out of bounds. Sometimes the officials are able to rely on replay, but that slows the game down a lot. And even then, even looking at replay, you're limited to the angles you have, and it still may be a difficult call. You know, there's a foot on the line, things like that … We're hoping, through Hawk-Eye type technology, that we can automate those calls." He even gave me his thoughts on if his predecessor, David Stern , made the right call vetoing a trade in 2011 that would have sent Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers. Watch the entire interview above. CNBC Sport highlight reel The best of CNBC Sport from the past week: Nike renewed its partnership with the NBA and the WNBA for another 12 years. Under the terms of the deal, Nike will be the leagues' global outfitting, merchandising, marketing and content partner until 2037. But the company may not be back as the NFL's official uniform supplier. The NFL's deal with Nike expires after the 2027 season. The league has opened up the process to other bidders and is already in talks with several companies interested in competing for the agreement, a source told CNBC's Jessica Golden and Gabrielle Fonrouge. Major League Soccer set a record for season attendance – with a little help from international superstars Luis Suárez and Lionel Messi , who have made the league a bigger draw. From CNBC's Lillian Rizzo : "Nearly 11.5 million people attended MLS matches during the regular season — which ended this past weekend — the most in its history, according to data from the league. That's up 5% from last year, and 14% from 2022. Each match during the 2024 season averaged 23,234 attendees, the highest ever for the regular season." You've probably seen the video by now of Hurricane Milton ripping the roof off Tropicana Field in Tampa, Florida. That almost certainly won't be the last weather-related damage to stadiums in the coming years. NFL stadiums could experience $11 billion in climate-related losses by 2050, according to a new report released by the climate risk analysis company, Climate X . CNBC's Contessa Brewer and Jessica Golden have more here . The big number: $1,019 The cheapest Game 1 World Series ticket between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers is $1,019, including fees, according to SeatGeek at the time of publication. Game 1 of the World Series begins Friday, Oct. 25. Quote of the week "Congrats @nyliberty on your first WNBA title! Incredible finals, proving everyone watches women's sports!" — U.S. President Joe Biden Biden "took to Twitter" (do people still say that? Took to X? Ugh.) to congratulate the New York Liberty on winning their first WNBA Championship in the team's 28-season history. The WNBA's stunning ratings this year were largely driven by the Indiana Fever's Caitlin Clark , but Game 5 of the Finals held its own with 2.15 million viewers, the most-watched WNBA Finals game in 25 years. Around the league The baseball that Shohei Ohtani hit to put him in the 50 home run/50 stolen base club has sold for a record price of $4.39 million. That's the highest sale price of any baseball – ever – sold at auction. The 50/50 ball "shows notable game use, with black scuff marks and surface abrasions visible on the leather," according to a statement from Goldin, the auction house that sold the ball. An amazing first took place this week as LeBron James and Bronny James took the court together, the first time a father has ever played alongside his son in the NBA. Bronny James' career will be watched closely. His pedigree is as good as it gets, but his freshman year in college underwhelmed. NBC's Greg Rosenstein asked other NBA sons of NBA players what they expect of Bronny given their own experiences. One of the topics I discussed with Silver was how to best monetize the WNBA after its sudden increase in popularity. Turns out WNBA players are thinking the same way. The Women's National Basketball Players Association announced Monday it is opting out of its collective bargaining agreement with the WNBA. The current CBA will still be in effect until Oct. 31, 2025. The two sides have a year to come to an agreement to avoid a lockout. Players are seeking "a business model that reflects their true value, encompassing higher salaries, enhanced professional working conditions, expanded health benefits, and crucial investments needed for long-term growth." I know when you think Lululemon, you think National Hockey League! Well, maybe you'll start to. Lululemon will design and develop a new line of fan apparel for 11 NHL teams for the 2024-25 season and will expand to all 32 teams for the 2025-26 season. Lululemon is partnering with Fanatics on the deal. Disclosure: Comcast's NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
