The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger is done, and now the ugly part is coming fast: cuts. With CBS Sports and TNT Sports expected to be folded into one operation under Skydance, people inside the sports media business are already bracing for layoffs, job consolidation and a serious trimming of expensive rights deals.
According to Puck’s John Ourand, one top sports business executive didn’t sugarcoat what employees should expect once the new structure starts taking shape.
“Everybody assumes it’s gonna be a bloodbath.”
That warning comes as Skydance looks to deliver roughly $6 billion in synergies from combining Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. CEO David Ellison has said labor savings won’t make up the majority of that total, but when you combine two giant sports divisions with overlapping executives, producers, operations staff and on-air infrastructure, cuts are almost impossible to avoid.
The same executive said CBS Sports president David Berson, who is set to lead the combined sports operation, will need to be direct with employees while the company figures out who stays and who goes.
“David’s role at first is to be honest with his people, and not hide. And over the next month or two, the final entity will start to take shape.”
And this isn’t just about headcount. Skydance is also expected to take a hard look at the mountain of sports rights sitting across CBS Sports and TNT Sports. Ourand noted that TNT’s post-NBA spending spree could be especially vulnerable now that the combined company already owns a deep sports portfolio.
That includes the College Football Playoff sublicense with ESPN through 2028, the Big 12 football and basketball sublicense through 2031, and the French Open deal that runs through 2034. LightShed Partners analyst Rich Greenfield said the issue is simple: the new company may just have too much.
“The reality is that Skydance probably has more sports rights than it needs. All of the things that TNT Sports was doing to scramble to fill the hole that the NBA left—Skydance doesn’t need those rights anymore.”
That puts pressure on more than just the smaller add-on deals. TNT Sports’ MLB and NHL packages both expire in 2028 and cost more than $700 million annually combined. In a company already promising billions in savings, deals that expensive are going to get a hard look.
The rights that appear safest are the big-ticket properties already driving the sports business. Ourand described the NFL, March Madness, UFC and the Masters as “untouchable,” which gives a pretty clear picture of where Skydance wants to spend and where it may start hacking away.
That matters even more because the NFL is expected to get significantly more expensive when the league can opt out of its current CBS deal in 2030. Ellison has already said CBS wants to stay in business with the NFL long-term, so something else may have to give.
The company may not even wait for some contracts to expire. Ourand pointed to Fox dumping its USGA rights to NBC in 2020 as an example of how a network can get out of an expensive long-term deal if the economics stop working.
There is still a growth strategy buried underneath all the cuts. Skydance is expected to prioritize rights that can boost subscription streaming, especially internationally, and one possibility floated is an aggressive run at Premier League rights in the U.K. to help grow Paramount+.
But that’s the long game. The immediate story is much harsher. Ringside News previously covered the massive Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery merger and what it could mean for AEW and the media business, and now the sports side is heading straight into the cost-cutting phase.
AEW is another piece of this that still hasn’t been fully answered. The company’s current relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery suddenly sits inside a much bigger Skydance sports operation, and it remains to be seen how AEW fits once its next renewal and re-up options come into play.
That’s where things could get interesting. Skydance is clearly preparing to cut costs, dump rights it doesn’t believe it needs and reshape the combined CBS Sports-TNT Sports portfolio around the properties it values most. AEW isn’t in the same category as the NFL, March Madness, UFC or the Masters, so its future could eventually come down to whether Skydance sees the promotion as a valuable long-term piece of its television and streaming strategy.
For now, AEW remains in place, but the real test will come when Skydance has to make decisions on future options and extensions. If the company is serious about trimming anything it views as expendable, AEW’s next contract decision is going to be one worth watching closely.
For employees inside CBS Sports and TNT Sports, the next few months could be rough. The merger created one giant sports operation, and now Skydance has to decide which jobs are redundant, which rights are expendable and where it can start carving out those billions in promised savings.
What do you think gets hit first: jobs, MLB and NHL rights, or some of TNT’s newer sports deals? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
