From Berlin to London: Amazon delivers NBA Europe games for an international audience By George Bevir Thursday, January 15, 2026 - 18:45
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When the Memphis Grizzlies take on the Orlando Magic in Berlin this evening, it will mark the first regular-season NBA game ever played in Germany. Just a few days later, the same teams will face each other again in London, returning the league to the UK for the first time in six years.
These European fixtures will also be the first in the region since the NBA's 11-year media rights deal with Amazon Prime Video, which came into effect with the 2025-26 season.
The deal allows Prime Video to present exclusive global coverage of 66 regular-season NBA games, including a new Black Friday NBA game, all games from the Knockout Rounds of the Emirates NBA Cup, plus the NBA Europe games in Berlin and London.
The NBA has long been committed to growing the game beyond North America, staging pre-season matches outside the US since the mid-1980s and regular-season games since 1990. According to NBA Senior Vice President and Head of NBA Broadcasting Paul Benedict, having Amazon Prime Video onsite to produce and distribute the Berlin and London games creates a truly global platform for this international showcase. With Amazon Prime Video's cutting-edge technology, top-tier production capabilities, and expansive global reach, these games will deliver a best-in-class experience for fans everywhere.
When you think about the talent and the coordination downstream of the main feed that has to happen on our international side, it truly is remarkable people are executing all over the world to make this happen.
Tonight's Grizzlies v Magic tie is the first part of a triple-header of matches on Prime, which presents its own operational and logistical challenges and means the game needs both to fit in visually with the matches that follow and slot into Prime Video's intricate global production ecosystem.
Having the international rights, and broadcasting this in 14 different languages - it's a science project. And it's one of the most difficult things we've done, says Ken Miller, director of production and technical operations at Amazon.
He explains that moving from regular NBA venues in the US (and even the relatively familiar environs of the O2 in London, which last staged a game in 2019) to the Uber Arena in Berlin for the first time has been an international challenge , with the first site visit taking place in August.
A venue like this (Uber Arena) isn't set up for the size of show that we have, says Miller. We have had to create a lot of camera positions, putting up scaffolding to get the positions that we need. So we've ended up with some that are closer to the court than they would be in the home arenas.
To aid continuity, some key members of the production crew have travelled from the US, bringing their NBA experience with them. Led by director Travis Henderson, a veteran of covering basketball at three Olympic Games, the team includes five camera operators and three EVS operators from the US to ensure seamless coverage.
John Ward, head of global tech ops at Prime Video, who has been working closely with facilities partner NEP, overseeing the technical setup - including cameras, audio, replay and graphics - for both the Berlin and London fixtures, explains that the production will largely be based on site. Pre-game will emanate from Berlin and the game will be cut on site, all fed back through Prime Video's normal transmission path, via the studios in Culver City, Los Angeles.
Action from last year's NBA Paris Games 2025 [Credit: NBAE/Getty Images]
We've got transmission checks in Culver that loop back to hit our international pipeline; because of that triple-header on Thursday night, our normal TOC operations will be in effect. We also have a post-production suite that we will utilise in Los Angeles. And for the highlights operation, there are five EVS crates, so there are 60 channels of replay and input for records. It's also worth noting that, for ease of use, we're keeping the production at 59.94 on site, trying to limit the frame conversion that we're doing to go back through the US chain. But we also have 60 channels of frame-rate conversion on site for those that need PAL.
With the majority of its US game nights featuring East Coast/West Coast doubleheaders, Prime recruited Game Creek to build and operate largely identical mobile units on each coast, with Bird (East) and Magic (West). And for the Berlin and London fixtures, NEP UK is supporting with a cloned operation.
Adeline Lee, senior production operations manager looking after Europe and rest-of-world territories, says: We're using the same trucks as for our Champions League coverage in the UK. These are people who are familiar with working the Prime Video way, and in trucks that meet the spec, because the US game spec is pretty big - and we do have a similarly large game spec on our UCL coverage.
Because there are only two full days between games, while the same crew can be used across sites, two separate technical setups are required, with NEP providing its Venus and Albiorix trucks in Berlin, and Ceres and Aurora in London, along with around 50 NEP crew per game.
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Shooting in 1080p59.94, both games will feature around 28 camera sources, nine of which are Sony HDC-5500s, while NEP Specialty Capture from the US is providing remote robotics and mini cams for the baskets and other positions. Canon is supplying lenses, with switchers from Grass Valley and Calrec audio tools. And graphics provided by SMT, Reality Check, Fingerworks and Vizrt.
NEP Europe project manager T
