Global basketball governing body FIBA has struck a new multi-year broadcast partnership in the US with Warner Bros. Discovery-owned network TNT Sports for its major national team competitions.
The multi-year deal will see TNT Sports broadcast FIBA’s top-line international competitions through 2029, including this year’s 2026 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup, and the 2027 FIBA Men’s Basketball World Cup, which will be staged in Qatar.
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Coverage will be disseminated across TNT Sports, as well as other Warner Bros.Discovery (WBD) networks such as TBS and truTV, with additional content on the HBO Max streaming service.
Furthermore, WBD-owned sports-focused mixed-media brands such as Report, B/R W, and House of Highlights will create content around the events for social media provision.
Frank Leenders, the director general of FIBA’s media and marketing service arm, said: “This deal is one that we can proudly say will take the profile of international basketball to a whole new level in the USA, and we are certainly excited to be partnering with TNT Sports.
"It's important that in a nation like the USA, which is so synonymous with basketball, we have as many top-quality international games broadcast in the market as possible. We are particularly looking forward to the launch, and especially with so much of the spotlight on the Women's World Cup."
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataFIBA Media, a joint venture partnership between the governing body and global OTT service DAZN, brokered the TNT Sports partnership.
The 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup will take place in the German capital of Berlin from September 4 to 13, while the men’s tournament in 2027 will be staged in Qatar.
This partnership will begin with the pre-event qualifying tournament for the women’s World Cup, which will be hosted in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from March 11 to 17, with the USA taking on New Zealand, Senegal, Spain, and hosts Puerto Rico.
As basketball’s strongest global market, the US has typically dominated both the men’s (five-time winners) and women’s (11-time winners) FIBA World Cups.
The current crop of top US women’s basketball players, which includes the likes of Caitlin Clarke, Angel Reece, and Paige Beuckers, is a proven viewership draw for the top-tier WNBA, and TNT likely hopes that this will translate into national team coverage.
While the US women’s team has won each of the last four editions, the men’s team slipped up in the most recent tournament in 2023, falling to eventual champions Germany in the semi-finals before losing the third-place game to Canada after overtime.
In the US, TNT Sports has a long history of broadcasting basketball, and currently holds the rights to several college basketball conferences, including the Big 12 and Big East, as well as the annual NCAA Men’s ‘March Madness’ National Championship tournament, which it co-broadcasts alongside Paramount-owned CBS.
No longer, however, does it hold the rights to the elite men’s NBA, after falling out of the broadcast mix in 2024 in what was a major shakeup to basketball coverage in the US.
These FIBA rights could then be seen as a means of ameliorating the gap in basketball coverage on WBD networks.
The future of these networks, and the HBO Max service, is up in the air at present, however, with WBD in the process of being acquired by rival media heavyweight Paramount.
This week, Paramount chief David Ellison stated his intention to merge HBO Max with his own Paramount+ streamer upon completion of the historic purchase.
Ellison, who took over Paramount in 2025 after merging it with his film studio Skydance, explained: “We will combine the streaming portfolios of the two companies into one stronger platform over the coming years.
“We think the combined offering, given the amount of content and what we can do from the tech side, really will put us in the position to be able to compete with the most scaled players in [direct-to-consumer].”
Paramount’s CBS Sports network holds rights to several major properties, including European club soccer’s UEFA Champions League, American football’s NFL, PGA Tour golf, and top-tier college sports. In 2024, it aired (what was then) the most-watched NFL Super Bowl in history.
Paramount+ has, as of late, become its primary sports rights vehicle, striking multi-year rights agreements with the TKO-owned Zuffa Boxing organization and MMA promotion UFC.
In terms of WBD's major sports rights, meanwhile, in the US it has a domestic rights stable that includes the French Open tennis grand slam, Major League Baseball, college football, and ice hockey’s NHL, as well as an expansive international portfolio that also includes the HBO Max service.
The merger would, as such, grant the resulting streaming service a sports portfolio on par with any in the US, and likely heighten the reach of FIBA tournaments on the service by bringing together two user bases.
