The National Basketball Association (NBA) has secured a historic broadcast deal with ESPN, ABC, NBC, and Amazon, worth $76 billion (€69.7 billion) over 11 years. The partnership is scheduled to commence at the beginning of the 2025/26 season.
Andrew Marchand of The Athletic announced the finalisation of the contract through his post on the X platform, formerly Twitter. This 11-year deal retains ABC/ESPN as the league’s current partner and brings NBC and Amazon Prime on board. However, this change may ultimately result in increased costs for fans.
The NBA is set to undergo a significant broadcasting shift. TNT Sports, a long-standing partner of the NBA, will be replaced by a new lineup featuring ESPN, NBC, and Amazon’s Prime Video. This new deal will allow ESPN and NBC to expand their NBA coverage. At the same time, Amazon will become the league’s first exclusive streaming partner. NBC and Amazon will also broadcast NBA games during the traditional NFL off-season, beginning in February.
Prime Video is expected to showcase most of its regular season games on Friday and Saturday nights. Additionally, NBC’s Peacock will stream live games on Tuesdays, with NBC primarily airing games on Mondays.
Due to the addition of a new partner, ESPN is anticipated to broadcast fewer regular season games than its previous media rights deal with the league. During the NFL season, ESPN will broadcast regular season games on Wednesdays, Saturdays (on ABC), and Sundays.
ESPN will retain the valuable coverage of the NBA Finals as part of the 11-year deal, along with one Conference Finals. The other Conference Finals will be shared between NBC and Amazon on a game-to-game basis.
NBA and TNT Sports partnership
This monumental $76 billion (€69.7 billion) deal comes after ESPN agreed to pay $2.6 billion (€2.3 billion) annually, with NBC contributing $2.5 billion (€2.2 billion) and Amazon allocating $1.8 billion (€1.6 billion). As part of the new agreement, Amazon will exclusively hold the rights to the NBA’s latest competition, the NBA In-Season Tournament.
The finalised deal spells the end of TNT’s broadcasting of NBA games. The network had partnered with the league since 1989 and played a pivotal role in creating impactful shows like “Inside the NBA,” featuring Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, who recently retired from the industry.
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