Report: Warner Bros. Discovery Could Enhance Sports Offerings by Bringing Bleacher Report to TV
The company-wide review of the recently merged Warner Bros. Discovery is still underway by CEO David Zaslav. On the same day that a large number of WBD TV employees lost their job, reports emerged that Zaslav was exploring options to bring another one of the company’s products to TV. One way that nearly every media company is looking to expand is by offering more sports content, which has always been a huge draw for linear TV providers. WBD Senior EVP and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said in September that the company was pursuing “out of the box” options when it came to supplementing the company’s future sports content.
A new report from Business Insider suggests that one such option under discussion at WBD is bringing the company’s sports and culture website Bleacher Report to TV.
Possibilities for a televised Bleacher Report include using its brand to bolster content on TNT, which airs games from the NBA, MLB, NHL, NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, AEW Wrestling, and more. A company insider who spoke to Insider also speculated that TNT’s smaller sibling network TruTV could be remade as a Bleacher Report content distributor, noting that “everything is on the table” regarding a potential expansion. The company’s streaming platform HBO Max could also get in on the Bleacher Report game.
One area that could be especially ripe for expansion via Bleacher Report is sports betting. B/R Betting has more than a million social media followers and sees over 6 million engagements on various social media platforms per month.
WBD has, of course, had discussions regarding whether or not to simply sell Bleacher Report instead, but sports is a core part of WBD’s strategy moving forward, and Bleacher Report has been an asset to the company in reaching out to younger viewers.
The company has been selective about pursuing the rights to stream more live sports events. Wiedenfels noted that the company would be disciplined and “not chase trophy assets” simply got the sake of owning individual rights. Through other acquisitions, the Discovery part of the company has become a major sports broadcaster internationally, especially in Europe where it owns major soccer and Olympics rights. WBD inherited the NBA rights via Warner Media’s ownership of TNT, but those rights expire following the 2024-25 season, and while undoubtedly be expensive for WBD to retain.
Before the merger, Turner did win the rights to stream U.S. Men’s and Women’s National Team soccer earlier this year, and WBD’s streaming platform HBO Max streams Champions League soccer in Latin America. HBO Max’s EVP for Global Product Management Sarah Lyons told The Streamable earlier this year that they were using the Latin American market as a test to eventually roll out the Champions League coverage domestically.
“We’ve started to test our way into how that fits into the platform,” she said. “We have Champions League which is huge and actually draws a lot of concurrent viewership, which is amazing. So we’ve started playing with how that content fits within the HBO Max experience overall.”
An expansion of Bleacher Report would allow WBD to offer more sports coverage using a highly-recognized brand that they already own. Considering that cutting content and firing employees to save money has been the norm at WBD over the past six months, an expansion of any segment of its business would be a significant change. However, sports is a growth segment for the industry, and that may lead to the televising of Bleacher Report very soon.
Max
Max is a subscription video streaming service that gives access to the full HBO library, along with exclusive Max Originals. There are hubs for content from TLC, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery, TCM, Cartoon Network, Travel Channel, ID, and more. Watch hit series like “The Last of Us,” “House of the Dragon,” “Succession,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and more. Thanks to the B/R Sports add-on, users can watch NBA, MLB, NHL, March Madness, and NASCAR events.