The NBA has agreed a record-setting deal with ESPN, ABC, NBC and Amazon in a multi-year broadcast deal that is worth $76bn.
The landmark media deal is one of the most valuable in all of sports and will begin at the start of the 2025/26 season. 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.
The new deal is expected to last for 11 seasons and whilst it is still awaiting to be approved by the NBA’s Board of Governors, this is expected to be signed off with no hiccups.
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. The inaugural edition saw LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers win the tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada.
As previously mentioned, TNT Sports will no longer have broadcasting rights for the NBA for the first time since 1989, meaning the multi-time Emmy award-winning ‘Inside The NBA’ show will no longer be part of NBA programming.
Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav failed to agree a deal with the league during the exclusivity window of negotiations last March and April, enabling NBC and Amazon to come in and make open bids.
Zaslav previously mentioned prior to the exclusivity window that whilst they still want the NBA on their programming, he revealed that “we don’t have to have the NBA” which reportedly irked NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
Now facing the possibility of having no NBA live games for the next 11 years, Zaslav and Warner Bros Discovery will make one last bid to acquire rights by attempting to bundle a shared deal with Amazon. Warner Bros Discovery has until five days to make an offer to the league.
Inside The NBA analyst and Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, a fan favourite for NBA fans, recently came out and criticised Zaslav and Warner Bros Discovery for not sealing a deal before it was too late.
In regards to rumours that TNT Sports is increasingly unlikely to secure rights in the next deal, Barkley went on the Dan Patrick Show to voice his concern.
He said: “I just feel so bad for the people I work with. These people have families and I just really feel bad for them right now. You know these people I work with, they screwed this thing up, clearly. We don’t have zero idea what’s going to happen.”
On the same show, Barkley announced that he will retire from broadcasting at the end of the 2024/25 season once Warner Bros Discovery’s current deal with the NBA ends.
There have been reported rumours that Inside The NBA’s Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith may move to another broadcaster to continue the popular show.
