The NBA has netted a record broadcast deal with ESPN, ABC, NBC and Amazon.
Worth $76bn, the multi-year media partnership will begin at the start of the 2025/26 season and has been described as one of the most valuable in all of sports.
There is one noteworthy admission, however, as TNT Sports lost rights for the NBA in the last negotiation period and will not broadcast the league for the first time since 1989.
ESPN, NBC and Amazon’s Prime Video – the league’s first exclusive streaming partner – will receive a lion-share of regular season games. It is believed that once the NFL season concludes in February, NBC and Amazon will replace NFL timeslots for NBA games, maximising potential viewership.
Prime Video is also expected to show a majority of its regular season games on Friday and Saturday nights whilst another streaming platform, NBC’s Peacock, will also stream live games on Tuesdays, with NBC’s programme predominantly broadcasting games on Mondays.
ESPN is expected to broadcast fewer regular season games than it did in its last media rights deal with the league due to sharing with an additional partner. Whilst the NFL season resumes, ESPN will broadcast regular season games on Wednesdays, Saturdays – on ABC – and Sundays.
What ESPN held onto was the valuable coverage of the NBA Finals to be on the network each year as part of the 11-year deal, as well as one Conference Finals. The other Conference Finals will be jointly shared between NBC and Amazon on a game-to-game basis.
The seismic $76bn deal comes after ESPN agreed to pay $2.6bn per year, with NBC forking over $2.5bn and Amazon paying $1.8bn.
As part of the new deal, Amazon will have exclusive rights to the NBA’s newest competition, the NBA In-Season Tournament.
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