In the wake of a recent spree that saw Warner Bros. Discovery snap up the rights for such properties as the French Open, a midseason NASCAR slate and the new women’s basketball league Unrivaled, the company may choose to sit out any upcoming sports auctions.

Speaking to analysts during WBD’s fourth quarter earnings call Thursday, CEO David Zaslav suggested the parent company of TNT and TBS won’t necessarily look to bolster its post-NBA portfolio with a Formula 1 or UFC deal. “We don’t need any more sports, anywhere in the world, in order to support our business,” Zaslav said, adding that the emphasis at WBD is to develop in-house theatrical releases and TV series.

“We like sports, but we’re very disciplined and we’re opportunistic,” Zaslav said. “We would buy sports if we think it would enhance our business.”

Zaslav went on to say that escalating rights fees will make it more difficult to justify additional sports investments to WBD’s shareholders. “We’re money-good on almost all of our sports in this company,” he said. “But it’s going to get more difficult. You know, some of those prices being paid …”

Rather than chase after expensive, short-term rental properties, Zaslav prefers to devote WBD’s resources to “great IP like Batman or The Penguin.” Zaslav issued his comments as WBD enters the back half of its final season with the NBA, a relationship that had endured for nearly 40 years.

Chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels took the glass-half-full approach to the company’s post-NBA future, saying, “We will see several hundred millions of dollars of sports expense come out in 2026.”

By the same token, Wiedenfels acknowledged “there will be some associated ad revenues as well,” before adding that the net benefit of not having to fork over $1.8 billion every year for the NBA rights should work out to “a few-hundred-million-dollar improvement in 2026 over 2025.”

Last summer, Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino projected that the loss of the NBA could cost WBD as much as $600 million in annual profits. Investors should have a better sense of the impact of the separation about 18 months from now, when the company issues its earnings for the second quarter of 2026—its first Q2 without an NBA playoff boost since the 1988-89 season.

WBD’s networks segment generated $20.2 billion in revenue last year, down 5% versus the year-ago $21.2 billion. Advertising revenue fell 12% year-to-year to $7.31 billion, good for a net loss of $1.04 billion, while distribution revenue was down 7% to $10.7 billion. The DTC unit saw a 2% bump, notching $10.3 billion, as Max closed out the year with 57.1 million subscribers, up from 52 million at the end of 2023.

The DTC business turned a profit of $677 million in 2024, up from the year-ago mark of $103 million. At the close of 2022, WBD posted a streaming loss of $217 million. In a letter to shareholders released shortly before Thursday morning’s call, WBD acknowledged that the “U.S. linear television advertising market has deteriorated faster than we expected.” While the networks segment “continue[s] to generate robust free cash flow,” the acceleration of pay-TV declines has made “forecasting the networks’ advertising [prospects] challenging.”

At last count, the number of U.S. households that subscribed to a traditional cable/satellite/telco-TV bundle had dropped to 48.2 million, down 12% from the year-ago period. In the past five years, 42% of bundled subs have cut the cord, which works out to a loss of 35.4 million pay-TV households. The virtual MVPDs have helped claw back a portion of those departed customers, bringing the overall pay-TV headcount to 68.5 million homes, which translates to a 54% penetration rate. At its peak, the legacy cable bundle was in approximately 90% of all U.S. homes.

Shares of WBD were up 8.9% to $11.44 in early trading.