NBA TV deal FAQ: What's next for ESPN, NBC, Amazon and 'Inside the NBA'
The NBA officially announced its new national television coverage plan late Wednesday afternoon, after it concluded that Warner Bros. Discovery did not have the ability to match Amazon's offer to take a third slice of the overall package.
That means that Disney (ABC and ESPN), Comcast (NBA and Peacock) and Amazon will be airing all of the NBA's nationally televised games from the 2025-26 season through the 2035-36 season -- an 11-year agreement that will net the NBA roughly $76 billion dollars.
But with Warner Bros. Discovery threatening potential legal action as it looks to continue a partnership between the NBA and Turner Sports that dates back 40 years, and with TNT specifically since 1988, there could be more twists and turns ahead.
Keeping that in mind, here's a rundown of everything we know and everything we're tracking about the current state of the NBA's new TV agreement, how it will impact fans, teams and the league.
What will the regular-season TV schedule look like starting in 2025-26?
The NBA will now have nationally televised games every day of the week:
Monday: Peacock, NBC's streaming service, will air a doubleheader every week
Tuesday: NBC will air two games on regional affiliates
Wednesday: ESPN will air its usual doubleheaders"
Thursday: Amazon will begin airing prime-time games in January after "Thursday Night Football" ends
Friday: Amazon will air prime-time doubleheaders, and ESPN will also occasionally air some
Saturday: ABC will continue to have prime-time showcase games, while Amazon will occasionally air games in the afternoon
Sunday: NBC will air prime-time games after "Sunday Night Football" wraps up in January
In its release, the NBA said that NBCUniversal would air "up to 100" games, while Disney will have 80 and Amazon will have 66.
What happened to Warner Bros. Discovery matching Amazon's offer Monday?
Exactly 11 minutes before the NBA announced its new television deal Wednesday afternoon, it put out a terse statement in response to Warner Bros. Discovery using its matching rights in the current deal, which expires at the end of the 2024-25 season.
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"Throughout these negotiations, our primary objective has been to maximize the reach and accessibility of our games for our fans. Our new arrangement with Amazon supports this goal by complementing the broadcast, cable and streaming packages that are already part of our new Disney and NBCUniversal arrangements. All three partners have also committed substantial resources to promote the league and enhance the fan experience."
About 90 minutes later, Warner Brothers Discovery responded with its own statement, which included: "We think [the NBA has] grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-26 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action."
What happens next?
This deal has been, for all intents and purposes, wrapped up for months, with the delay believed to be linked to the NBA sorting out exactly where Warner Brothers Discovery's matching rights land, and whether it would be allowed to match the Amazon package -- the smallest of the three at roughly $1.8 billion per year.
That's why the key portion of the NBA's statement focused on the reach of Amazon's Prime Video platform, and why Warner Brothers Discovery's statements both Monday announcing its intent to match and Wednesday in response to the NBA denying it referred to Max, along with TNT, as part of its coverage plan.
Could Warner Brothers Discovery sue the NBA?
By saying "we will take appropriate action" in its statement, Warner Brothers Discovery is certainly opening the door to a potential lawsuit. It feels like, as of now, this situation has three possible outcomes:
A full lawsuit, where this goes to court and Warner Brothers Discovery fights to get the Amazon offer from the NBA; there is some sort of settlement to keep a suit from happening, including possibly finding a way for Warner Brothers Discovery to remain part of the rights deal going forward; or Warner Brothers Discovery walks away.
Wednesday's statement makes it feel like the third option is the least likely.
Who will televise the Finals in the new deal?
ABC will continue to be the home of the NBA Finals, as it has been since 2003.
What about the rest of the playoffs?
ESPN and Turner Sports have split playoff action in the current TV deal, with ABC airing the Finals and one of the conference finals, and Turner airing the other conference final.
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Under the new deal, ABC will have a conference final in "10 of 11" seasons that the deal runs -- it's currently unclear what year -- and NBC and Amazon will each get a conference final in six of the 11 years, meaning in one season each will have a conference final, and ABC won't have one.
Across the first two rounds of the playoffs, Disney will get 18 games a year, while NBCU will air 28 across NBC and Peacock and Amazon will stream one-third of all games across them -- with the league's release calling those totals "approximate."
What about NBA opening night in October 2025?
Opening night, which has been a TNT staple for decades, will shift to NBC as part of the new agreement.
What about All-Star weekend?
The marquee event on TNT's calendar will now also shift to NBC, which will take on all of the events across the weekend as well, with the exception of the All-Star celebrity game, which remains on ESPN.
Who will televise the Emirates NBA Cup?
The quarterfinal, semifinal and championship games of the NBA Cup will now be aired on Amazon -- an unsurprising development, given Amazon initially signaled its interest in securing NBA rights when it secured the rights to the WNBA's Commissioner's Cup when it began in 2021.
What about the NBA's other key national TV games?
Christmas Day games will remain exclusively on ABC/ESPN. The networks will also have exclusive coverage of the final day of the regular season.
NBCU, meanwhile, will air "at least two" games on Martin Luther King Jr. Day games on NBC and/or Peacock, while Amazon will have at least one game on the day after Thanksgiving.
NBC will air "regional broadcasts" on Tuesdays. What's that mean?
This was perhaps the most surprising part of the release Tuesday. NBC will have a regional doubleheader on Tuesdays going forward, which isn't surprising. What is surprising is how they are handling them.
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There will be one regional broadcast in the Eastern and Central Time Zones at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT.
Then, there will be another regional broadcast in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones at 9 p.m. MT/8 p.m. PT.
Yes, the NBA will be airing games that start at 11 p.m. ET -- games that could potentially be aired in the Eastern and Central Time Zones, as well, depending on if local affiliates choose to air the games. The Western affiliates will also have the option to air both games.
It is a fascinating turn from a league that has been repeatedly trying to make games start earlier, and basically stopped West Coast games from beginning after 10 p.m. ET in recent years. The Western affiliates will also have the option to air both games.
What about League Pass?
The NBA has entered a strategic partnership with Amazon moving forward -- one that will limit distribution on other platforms, though it's currently unclear how limited that distribution will be. For example, could fans still subscribe to it through YouTube TV, as they can now? There isn't an answer to that question yet.
What about NBA TV?
There is, so far, absolutely no answers about the future of the league's branded network, which has been jointly operated out of Turner's Atlanta studio for years. When asked a question about Inside the NBA (more on that momentarily) at his press conference ahead of Game 1 of the NBA Finals, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver spoke about the limbo the protracted negotiations had left the network, and Turner's NBA employees, as it all has played out.
"I will say directly from me, directly to your question and the people who seem to be most impacted right now, the folks at Turner Sports, I apologize that this has been a prolonged process, because I know they're committed to their jobs," Silver said. "I know people who work in this industry. It's a large part of their identity and their family's identity, and no one likes this uncertainty. I think it's on the league office to bring these negotiations to a head and conclude them as quickly as we can."
What hasn't been concluded, however, is what the future of the network, which is in more than 30 million homes, will be. It has been conspicuously absent from any discussions about the state of these negotiations in recent months, and was nowhere to be seen in Wednesday's release.
What about Inside the NBA?
While TNT Sports' Charles Barkley has publicly stated his intentions to retire from television after next season, when Turner's deal is set to expire, regardless of whether he follows through with that or not it seems very unlikely that the iconic studio show will be heading anywhere in Turner isn't part of the NBA moving forward. The widespread belief is that Inside the NBA's Ernie Johnson, who has hosted the show since 1990, wouldn't be interested in doing it elsewhere. There are many contractual hurdles and obligations involved that the idea of moving the show to another network seems unlikely.
How will the new TV deal affect the salary cap?
Fans may think back to summer of 2016, when the current TV deal kicked in and saw the salary cap spike from $70 million to $94 million from the 2015-16 season to the 2016-17 season because the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association didn't ease the new money into the system, but instead had it all come flooding in at once.
That led to the 73-win Golden State Warriors adding Kevin Durant without losing any of their stars, along with a series of other cap-related implications around the league. This time, however, the new CBA between the league and the NBPA includes "cap smoothing" to ease in new TV money, and both sides have already agreed to maximum yearly cap increases of 10% over the next few seasons with the potential to adjust them upward if necessary as the system absorbs the new cash.
How will the new national TV deal affect regional sports networks?
This remains unclear. The ongoing bankruptcy issues with Diamond Sports, which owns local rights to roughly half of the NBA's teams, leave that side of the deal on uncertain ground moving forward. But Amazon invested in Diamond back in January, and Amazon being part of this deal now only further cements the working relationship between Amazon and the NBA moving forward.
Will Amazon games be found on broadcast outlets?
No. In the new deal, there will be lots of games only available on Amazon Prime Video or on Peacock throughout the regular season and playoffs.
What does this deal mean for the WNBA?
As part of these negotiations, the WNBA has secured an 11-year, $2.2 billion deal. ESPN's Alexa Philippou has all the details, including how the deal could increase to as much as $3 billion and how talks could re-open early in the deal depending on growth of the league.
What does this mean for fans?
Finding games is going to take some more work and cost more money. The NBA was quick to point out in its release that you'll be able to access all games from the NBA app, regardless of what platform they are on. And the league also heralded a significant increase in games being shown on broadcast television, with the number of those games increasing from a minimum of 15 to approximately 75 across ABC and NBC as part of the new deal.
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A leaguewide fan is still going to need a Peacock subscription (either $7.99 per month or $79.99 per year); an Amazon Prime Video subscription ($8.99 per month); a cable or streaming subscription to watch ESPN; and will have to pay another chunk of money to have access to League Pass and then will also have to subscribe to a local service to watch the team in their home market.
That's a lot more options and variability in coverage than there was before, when it was, essentially, either ABC/ESPN or TNT airing national games.
Does this provide clarity on expansion talks?
Completing the TV deal was the final hurdle before getting into the nitty gritty of expansion discussions.
"I think we will engage this fall in earnest in the process of making those determinations," Silver said in Las Vegas last week during Summer League, with regards to expansion and whether it was the right thing for the league to do.
The belief around the NBA is that expansion is a matter of when, not if, and the league is now one large step closer.
NBA TV deal FAQ: What's next for ESPN, NBC, Amazon and 'Inside the NBA'
NBA TV deal FAQ: What's next for ESPN, NBC, Amazon and 'Inside the NBA'
NBA TV deal FAQ: What's next for ESPN, NBC, Amazon and 'Inside the NBA'
NBA TV deal FAQ: What's next for ESPN, NBC, Amazon and 'Inside the NBA'
NBA TV deal FAQ: What's next for ESPN, NBC, Amazon and 'Inside the NBA'
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