The National Basketball Association (NBA) has renewed its long-term telecast agreement with the Walt Disney Company’s ESPN and secured new deals with Comcast’s NBC Sports and Amazon’s Prime Video for national telecast rights to its games, starting next year.
The agreement, announced late Wednesday afternoon, comes after a last-minute effort by Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) to match a bid made by one of the broadcasters — reportedly Prime Video — to keep games on TNT Sports, which the league rejected this week.
Starting with the 2025-26 season, the NBA will expand the availability of nationally-televised games on traditional and streaming TV platforms, with Comcast’s NBC and Peacock offering the most games.
Comcast gets rights for NBC, Peacock, Sky Sports
Under the deal, Comcast will have the rights to as many as 100 regular-season games every year. More than half the games will air on NBC, split between Tuesday and Sunday evenings. The Sunday evening games will be broadcast when NBC is not airing the National Football League’s (NFL) “Sunday Night Football.”
The rest of the games will be available Monday evenings on Comcast’s direct-to-consumer streaming service Peacock, which starts at $8 per month. Some Comcast customers with Xfinity TV or Xfinity Internet have free access to Peacock. The Monday evening games will be double-headers, the NBA said, and efforts will be made to offer the games on local NBC stations or affiliates in the home broadcast markets of the teams playing each week.
NBC will offer some NBA Conference Finals games, with the network trading off telecast responsibilities with Prime Video. NBC will also be the home of the NBA All-Star event, including the Rising Stars, State Farm All-Star Saturday Night, featuring AT&T Slam Dunk, Starry 3-Point Contest and Kia Skills Challenge, and the All-Star game itself. And the Comcast will distribute around 28 games during the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs every year, with at least half of the games on NBC (the rest will be on Peacock).
Comcast has also secured the rights to distribute some regular-season games in Europe through Sky Sports. The multicast network is available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Spain. The cable company will also distribute games in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean through other platforms, the NBA confirmed.
Amazon to distribute games through Prime Video
Amazon will offer at least 66 regular-season games through Prime Video, including a double-header each Thursday night when the platform is not offering the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” games, the NBA confirmed. The double-header games will start every January.
Prime Video will also stream Friday evening double-headers and some Saturday afternoon games, as well as one game every Black Friday. All six NBA Play-In Tournament games — which determine the seventh-and eighth-seed team in each conference — will stream exclusively on Prime Video, and some Conference Finals games that are not offered on NBC will stream through Prime Video, too.
Overseas, Prime Video will stream NBA games in Mexico, Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and offer the NBA’s comprehensive TV package, NBA League Pass, in the United States and around the world.
Prime Video will also distribute around half of all NBA Summer League games during the off-season, with the rest of the games available on ESPN.
ESPN gets fewer games, but keeps NBA Finals
The package of games offered by Disney’s ESPN will be smaller than in previous years, but the broadcaster will still retain the rights to around five dozen games each season, the NBA confirmed on Wednesday.
Around 60 games will be offered through ESPN, while another 20 will air on co-owned network ABC, the league affirmed. All five Christmas Day games will remain on ABC and ESPN, and around 18 playoff games will air between the two networks each year.
ABC will continue to serve as the exclusive home of the NBA Finals, a designation it has held since 2003, and will also air one of the two Conference Final games in all but one year of the 11-year agreement.
ABC and ESPN will also continue to serve as the exclusive distributor of the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, NBA Draft, NBA Draft Lottery and half of all NBA Summer League games (the other half will air on Prime Video).
“Our new global media agreements with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon will maximize the reach and accessibility of NBA games for fans in the United States and around the world,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. “These partners will distribute our content across a wide range of platforms and help transform the fan experience over the next decade.”
“We look forward to building upon our incredible legacy of innovation and growth with our longstanding partners at the NBA,” ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement. “The NBA is a vibrant, ascendant league and through this premium collection of rights, including every NBA Finals on our platforms, we will continue to evolve together while successfully navigating the global digital transition and delivering the highest quality coverage for fans.”
“We are proud to once again partner with the NBA and WNBA, two iconic brands and the home of the best basketball in the world,” said Mike Cavanagh, the President of Comcast Corporation, who earlier in the week suggested an announcement on the telecast deal was forthcoming. “We look forward to presenting our best-in-class coverage of both leagues with our innovative programming and distribution plan across NBC and Peacock to entertain fans and help grow the game.”
“We are honored that the NBA has entrusted Prime Video to deliver its one-of-a-kind action and excitement to viewers around the world,” said Mike Hopkins, the lead executive in charge of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. “We look forward to continuing to innovate and evolve live sports coverage for our customers, and are fully committed to building an incredible video experience for millions of NBA fans starting in 2025.”
