There are concerns from sports leagues that a joint streaming service announced this week by ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp. could eventually bid for live-game rights as a combined entity and therefore reduce the total media rights fees paid out.

Leagues typically are able to negotiate a higher fee when there are multiple partners. The NFL currently has deals with ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC and Amazon Prime Video as well as YouTube for Sunday Ticket.

Sources tell FrontOfficeSports that the NBA is likely to double its partners from two to four by extending with ESPN and TNT while adding Amazon and NBC.

“Anything that potentially cuts down on the number of competitors bidding on sports rights is going to be, by definition, a significant concern to sports rights holders. It has to be,” Kosner tells Front Office Sports.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the leagues were "blindsided" by this week's announcement of the joint venture. 

“An effort to notify the leagues wasn’t made until Tuesday, before a planned announcement. Many learned of it when The Wall Street Journal broke the news,” the Journal reported. “The reason for the cone of silence was to keep the plans from leaking prematurely during the months the companies were settling the details, people involved in the partnership said.”

“While we look forward to learning more about this new venture,” an NBA spokeswoman tells FOS, “we’re encouraged by the opportunity to make premier sports content more accessible to fans who are not subscribers to the traditional cable or satellite bundle.”