(Bloomberg) -- Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. shares fell to an all-time low following a report that Comcast Corp. is seeking to replace the company as one of the broadcast partners for the National Basketball Association.

Shares of Warner, the parent of the Turner networks and HBO, lost as much as 10% to $7.36 Tuesday, falling to the lowest level since the company was formed by the merger of Discovery Inc. and WarnerMedia in 2022. 

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Comcast’s NBCUniversal division offered the NBA about $2.5 billion a year for rights to a package of games, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

The offer followed the expiration of exclusive talks the league was holding with Warner Bros., the newspaper reported. Warner Bros.’ TNT was unable to reach a new accord with the league before that window closed.

“The lack of games would dent TNT’s ad revenue by as much as $600 million, but the bigger worry is a loss of leverage with pay-TV operators, threatening over $2.5 billion in affiliate revenue,” Geetha Ranganathan, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said Tuesday in a note. “TV Ebitda will be down 15% this year vs. 2022.”

NBC’s package would include two prime-time games a week on the flagship broadcast channel along with playoffs, and coverage on the Peacock streaming service, the newspaper said. TNT is one of the league’s longtime partners.

Walt Disney Co., owner of ESPN and ABC, is the league’s other major TV partner and is expected to pay about $2.6 billion a year to renew its deal, up from about $1.5 billion now, the Journal reported. 

Amazon.com Inc. is also close to a deal to stream some games.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.