To say that the NBA’s breakup with Warner Bros. Discovery has been messy would be an understatement.

And from WBD’s perspective, it’s about to get a whole lot messier.

In his latest newsletter for Puck (subscription required), Dylan Byers reported on the fallout of WBD losing its NBA rights, which included its stock tanking on the news that it missed its estimated quarterly earnings and added a a write-down of $9.1 billion on its balance sheet. And it appears that the pain isn’t going to be stopping anytime soon, especially as it relates to Comcast (NBC), which — despite its efforts to argue otherwise — effectively replaced WBD as an NBA media rights partner.

While Comcast clearly had multiple motivations for getting back in business with the NBA, one that’s seemingly flown under the radar is the trickle effect on its cable business of WBD being nudged out of the deal. With TNT no longer carrying the NBA after the 2024-25 season (lawsuit pending), the cable channel is inarguably less valuable than it was previously, which should prove beneficial to Comcast in its next round of negotiations with WBD.

Writes Byers:

Meanwhile, as one media executive put it, Comcast executives are now “licking their lips” to “put the screws” to WBD during the next round of price negotiations, when TNT and the Warner cable assets come up for renegotiation. “That’s going to be their entire play,” another veteran media executive said. “They will save money on the Comcast cable side of the house that will help pay for the NBA on the NBC side of the house.”

In other words, NBC didn’t just bring the NBA (and “Roundball Rock”) back to its airwaves, but in nudging out WBD to do so, it helped pay for its $2.5 billion annual rights fee for the league. If Comcast cable has 13 million subscribers and it can negotiate TNT’s rights fee down from $3 per month to $1 per month (in line with similar cable channels without a massive live sports offering), that would effectively be a savings of $312 million annually.

Obviously, that only covers a fraction of the annual fee Comcast will be paying the NBA, but it does help soften the blow. Ultimately, Comcast had multiple motivations for making its deal with the NBA, including not wanting Peacock competitor Venu to have both ESPN and WBD’s NBA rights. In the end, Comcast not only got what it wanted, but also some savings on the price tag, all of which have come at the expense of WBD and its bottom line.

[Puck]