Luis Silberwasser, the chairman and chief executive of the TNT Sports pay-TV broadcaster, is departing the soon-to-be merged Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), with CBS Sports head David Berson to take over the media behemoth’s combined sports group.
According to CNBC, Silberwasser informed staff of his departure in an email on Monday.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
In the note, which was obtained by CNBC, he said: “I am writing to let you know that, with the closing of the Paramount–WBD merger, I will be departing the company as TNT Sports and CBS Sports come together under new leadership.”
Berson, the CBS Sports president and CEO, will lead a newly formed global sports group that will oversee all networks, platforms, and territories under the merged company, absorbing the CBS Sports, TNT Sports, and WBD Sports brands into a single operation. The merger itself is slated to close today.
The combined company, which last week announced it will be named Skydance, will own a large swathe of premium sports rights, including American football’s NFL, European club soccer’s UEFA Champions League, ice hockey’s NHL, Major League Baseball, the NCAA Tournament, college football, golf’s PGA Tour and The Masters tournament.
The combined portfolio also includes the UFC mixed martial arts promotion, which Paramount landed last year in a major seven-year deal in the US. In June, Paramount expanded its UFC coverage into Canada with a new six-year deal.
The Paramount+ streaming service has, as of late, become the company’s primary sports rights vehicle, also striking a multi-year agreement with the TKO-owned Zuffa Boxing organization.
Silberwasser joined TNT Sports in 2022 from Univision. WBD lost NBA live rights in 2025, concluding a 40-year relationship with the top basketball league.
To offset that, Silberwasser negotiated new multi-year deals to sublicense College Football Playoff games and air events such as All Elite Wrestling, the French Open tennis Grand Slam and Nascar races.
Berson, who joined CBS Sports in 2011 after a stint at ESPN, succeeded longtime boss Sean McManus to head up the division in 2024.
Paramount Skydance cleared a major hurdle in its drawn-out attempt to complete the acquisition of WBD last week after a US federal judge approved the $111 billion deal. The company followed that up by announcing Ynon Kreiz as co-chief of the combined entity.
Kreiz, the former chief executive of toy company Mattel, officially stepped into the role yesterday.
David Ellison continues as chairman and chief executive of the merged company, leading strategy, creative, and technology, including its talent relationships, strategic partnerships, technology, and capital allocation, while Kreiz will oversee day-to-day operations and integration of the combined businesses.
The acquisition is ultimately going ahead after Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín greenlit the consent decree defining the terms of the settlement agreed by Paramount and 12 US states, describing it as “a reasonable factual and legal resolution of the dispute.”
The decree set out terms for the five years after the merger closes, addresses theatrical and cable sector antitrust concerns raised by the 12 US states that competition will be reduced because of the merging of different film studios, and the potential for the two news networks of CBS News (Paramount) and CNN (WBD) to be merged.
Although the merger has passed this stage of regulatory scrutiny in the US, other challenges do still lie ahead in the UK.
WBD was initially put up for sale last year, with Paramount and Netflix the two main suitors.
For months, Netflix was the preferred bidder for the sought-after company, but Paramount’s repeated attempts to outbid the streamer and its public chase of the company meant that a deal was never reached.
Then, after months of public legal wrangling, Netflix pulled out of the race in late February, leaving the way clear for Paramount's offer – worth considerably more than Netflix's overall – to be accepted by the WBD board.
Then, in early March, David Ellison, the chief executive of Paramount (whose father, Larry, is a long-time friend of US President Donald Trump), confirmed plans to merge the company’s Paramount+ streaming service with Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max OTT platform once the acquisition was completed.
