NETFLIX + WBD = DISNEY + FOX

We don't need to guess how this will turn out...

Happy Monday Peaceniks. Ready for some math?

The entire Media Universe was atwitter this weekend, around the breathless breaking news that Netflix had won the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal worth at least $82.7 billion.

For the purposes of this essay, let’s put a pin in the facts that this deal will not close until 3Q 2026 at the absolute soonest, and that (as I said Friday) there is a an excellent chance this deal never even closes. Instead, today, let’s all focus only on the viability of the deal itself, assuming it comes to fruition.

Some will say it’s hard to predict how this deal might turn out. To that I say: Bullshit. We have a motion-picture-perfect case study to gauge how this merger will play out - the Disney acquisition of FOX in 2019.

There are myriad reasons why these deals are uber-appropriate comps: The prices are similar; the acquisition targets are almost identical; the need-case of the buyers are eerily alike; the post-deal debt loads are comparably monumental; and the strategic imperatives of all four companies involved bear striking resemblances.