NBA Rights Deals Officially Announced: Disney, NBCU, and Amazon Ink 11-Year Agreements; WBD Matching Offer Is Rejected ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock, Prime Video will broadcast NBA games starting with 2025-26 season By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Wednesday, July 24, 2024 - 5:36 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
After months of anticipation and drawn-out negotiations, the NBA has officially announced its new round of media-rights deals with Walt Disney Co., NBCUniversal (NBCU), and Amazon. Under terms of the 11-year deals, reportedly worth around $76 billion in total, ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock, and Prime Video will telecast NBA games from the 2025-26 season through the 2035-36 season.
The league also announced that it had rejected Warner Bros. Discovery's most recent proposal to match the terms of Amazon Prime Video's offer, creating a potential legal battle between the league and its longtime broadcast partner. WBD responded with a statement saying, We think they have grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-26 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action.
According to the league, the NBA App will serve as a universal access point by directing fans to every national game on Disney, NBCU, and Amazon platforms.
The new media deals will expand the reach of NBA telecasts, with all national games available on broadly distributed streaming services - Prime Video, Peacock, and ESPN's forthcoming direct-to-consumer service - and with dramatically increased exposure on broadcast television. Approximately 75 regular-season games will be on broadcast TV each season, up from the minimum of 15 games under the current agreement.
Our new global media agreements with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon will maximize the reach and accessibility of NBA games for fans in the U.S. and around the world, says NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. These partners will distribute our content across a wide range of platforms and help transform the fan experience over the next decade.
Says ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro, We look forward to building upon our incredible legacy of innovation and growth with our longstanding partners at the NBA. The NBA is a vibrant, ascendant league, and, through this premium collection of rights, including every NBA Finals on our platforms, we will continue to evolve together while successfully navigating the global digital transition and delivering the highest-quality coverage for fans.
Comcast Corp. President Mike Cavanagh says, We are proud to once again partner with the NBA and WNBA, two iconic brands and the home of the best basketball in the world. We look forward to presenting our best-in-class coverage of both leagues with our innovative programming and distribution plan across NBC and Peacock to entertain fans and help grow the game.
Says Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, We are honored that the NBA has entrusted Prime Video to deliver its one-of-a-kind action and excitement to viewers around the world. We look forward to continuing to innovate and evolve live sports coverage for our customers and are fully committed to building an incredible video experience for millions of NBA fans, starting in 2025.
Disney, NBCU, and Amazon also secured the right to distribute an unprecedented number of WNBA live game telecasts, with a significant increase in the reach of WNBA games across broadcast, cable, and streaming. CLICK HERE for full details regarding the WNBA's media agreements, which are reportedly worth about $200 million per season, $2.2 billion for the full term.
More Basketball in Bristol: Disney Nabs 80-Game Slate Disney (ABC/ESPN) will distribute a total of 80 NBA regular-season games per season, including more than 20 games on ABC (generally on Saturday nights with NBA Saturday Primetime and on Sunday afternoons with NBA Sunday Showcase) and up to 60 games on ESPN (generally on Wednesday nights and, on occasion, Friday nights). ABC/ESPN will continue to telecast all five NBA games on Christmas Day and provide exclusive national coverage of the final day of the regular season.
During the playoffs, ABC/ESPN will telecast approximately 18 games in the first two rounds each year and one of the two Conference Finals series in 10 of the 11 years of the agreement. ABC will remain the exclusive home of the NBA Finals, which it has broadcast since 2003.
All NBA games and events on ABC/ESPN will be available on ESPN's forthcoming direct-to-consumer service. ABC/ESPN will continue to telecast the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, NBA Draft, NBA Draft Lottery, and half of all NBA Summer League games. ABC/ESPN platforms will also continue to distribute a package of WNBA and NBA G League regular-season and postseason games.
Disney will distribute NBA games on ESPN-branded assets in several international markets - Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, the Netherlands - and via Disney+ in selected markets in Asia and Europe.
By the end of this renewal, the NBA's partnership with ABC/ESPN will reach 34 years.
Roundball Rock Return: NBC Gets 100-Game Slate, Alternating Conference Finals NBCU (NBC/Peacock) will distribute up to 100 NBA regular-season games per season - with more than half the games airing on NBC (on Sunday and Tuesday nights). NBCU will telecast the league's opening-night doubleheader on NBC each year and at least two games on MLK Day on NBC and/or Peacock each season.
Peacock will stream a doubleheader each Monday night of the season. Every Tuesday night, NBC will telecast two games across certain NBC-affiliate broadcast stations in different regions of the country. The first game will start at 8 p.m. ET and be available on NBC across affiliate stations in the Eastern and Central time zones. The second game will start at 8 p.m. PT and be availabl
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
NBA Rights Deals Officially Announced: Disney, NBCU, and Amazon Ink 11-Year Agreements; WBD Matching Offer Is Rejected ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock, Prime Video will broadcast NBA games starting with 2025-26 season By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. 
