The “Great One,” in hockey, is Wayne Gretzky to a lot of people out there. And now, reports note, the Great One will be making a comeback to NHL on TNT under entertainment giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) thanks to a successful contract negotiation and deal extension. The news was good enough for shareholders, as Warner shares ticked up fractionally in the closing minutes of Monday’s trading.
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Gretzky’s return to NHL on TNT comes at an unusual time. Warner is about to part ways with its TNT arm, folding it, and all the other television currently involved under the Warner banner, into Discovery Global, a separate arm that will carry with it most of Warner’s debt and a 20% ownership stake in the studio arm when it goes. That is, of course, if it goes; talk of potential buyouts from several different sources has emerged in the meantime.
Gretzky had a lot of good things to say about the current setup, noting, “We might disagree about a play or a player or a team, but there’s no animosity. Nobody tries to take over the microphone or take over the camera. We are a team, just like a hockey team.” This is good news for both himself and Warner, and raises the possibility that Warner may be looking to build a new franchise to replace the Inside the NBA line that it is about to lose, at least mostly.
“Not My Real Business Daddy and You Never Will Be!”
Then things got weird. And, perhaps not surprisingly, at the bottom of this weirdness was John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight. And he is very, very not into the idea of Paramount Skydance (PSKY) buying Warner.
Oliver offered up a set of jokes, featuring some obscenities to drive the point home, before declaring, “You are not my real business daddy, and you never will be!” Much of Oliver’s objection was focused on Paramount, and specifically to some of its recent political moves, like the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It is unclear, meanwhile, if Oliver would welcome a completely different business daddy in the form of Netflix (NFLX).
Is WBD Stock a Good Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on WBD stock based on four Buys and 11 Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 145.98% rally in its share price over the past year, the average WBD price target of $16.96 per share implies 10.92% downside risk.
