Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels teased that a TNT Sports app is in the works ahead of the company’s split next year.
The direct-to-consumer streaming platform will also be available as a bundle, the Discovery Global CEO-elect said on a Wednesday investor conference call.
“We’re working on creating our our own TNT Sports app, which is going to be available as a streaming product,” he said. “But importantly, also as a bundle option, internally with discovery+, or not-so internally anymore with HBO Max, but we are also open to other partners in the industry.”
Wiedenfels added that the company plans to leverage its partnerships with sports social media strongholds Picture Report and House of Highlights.
The exec also said that sports are a core part of the company’s strategy post-split as all sports viewing opportunities are moving off of HBO Max. As for the company’s sports portfolio, home to March Madness, the NBA and Nascar, Wiedenfels said he is happy with it as it stands and does not anticipate adding any more to the plate … unless something special comes along.
“We’re always going to continue looking at everything that comes to the market, and in many cases, you’re going to see us say no, because you have to be incredibly disciplined in that space,” he said.
“I’d love the portfolio as it stands right now,” Wiedenfels reiterated. “And if there are rights that become available as everybody is kind of reshuffling their strategies, we’ll be there and we’ll take a look, and if we can generate some shareholder value off of it, we’ll be in business.”
In addition to TNT Sports, Discovery Global plans to relaunch discovery+ and has plans for CNN’s digital expansion. The company launched discovery+ in the United States in 2021, but it dissolved following the WBD merger. CNN’s short-lived streamer launched in 2022 and shut down just one month later.
The CEO-elect said that he and his team are as energized as ever to get Discovery Global off the ground in Q2 of 2026. Though his company will take on more of the debt than Warner Bros., Wiedenfels assured investors that they will still have money to allocate for internal advances.
“There will be excess cash that we can now put to work within Discovery Global, as opposed to handing it off to HBO Max and the studio,” he said. “There are pockets of growth, pockets of investment opportunity that we just wouldn’t have tackled as part of a WBD conglomerate, but that make a lot of sense to tackle now.”
Current WBD CEO David Zaslav will lead Studios & Streaming, while Wiedenfels will lead Discovery Global Networks. Brad Singer will replace Wiedenfels as CFO of Warner Bros.
Bank of America media analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich moderated the investor session.
