Under New NBA Rights Package, Amazon Prime Video Will Handle Production End to End Internally' The streaming-service provider will also produce and distribute its WNBA games in-house By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, November 21, 2024 - 2:30 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Over the past few years, Amazon Prime Video has grown its sports-rights portfolio by leaps and bounds while continuing to build its infrastructure and team of production personnel. Today, it appears, Prime Video is ready to take full control of its own production destiny as it prepares to tip off new rights deals with the NBA and WNBA next year.
For NBA, what we've been doing kind of the last few years as we've built out the sports group at Amazon Prime Video is investing in more people, more infrastructure, said Jeff Kaiser, head of sports programming, Amazon Prime Video, during yesterday's SBJ Media Innovators conference. We're in a good place now where we will be managing all of our NBA production and WNBA production end to end internally.
Amazon Prime Video's Jeff Kaiser: We're looking to take some of the [tech innovations from TNF] and apply them to the NBA when it makes sense.
Since taking over exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football in 2022, Prime Video has worked closely with NBC Sports Group to produce and deliver live game broadcasts. Kaiser described working with NBC as an amazing collaboration and said his team has been really fortunate to work with NBC on Thursday Night Football. However, the NBA package will be Prime Video's biggest in-house production operation to date.
As part of the NBA rights deal announced in July, Amazon Prime Video inked an 11-year media-rights agreement that will begin with the 2025-26 NBA season. Under it, Prime Video will present exclusive global coverage of 66 regular-season NBA games: among them, an opening-week doubleheader, a new Black Friday NBA game, and all games from the Knockout Rounds of the Emirates NBA Cup, including In-Season Tournament semifinals and finals. Prime Video also acquires rights to exclusive coverage of every game of the postseason SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament, first- and second-round playoff games, and conference finals in six of the 11 years of the deal.
Here are a few more highlights from Kaiser's session at SBJ Media Innovators:
On the league's resolution of the lawsuit with Warner Bros. Discovery regarding the NBA rights package: We've been living in a world of all systems go, so really no impact as we prepare to launch this NBA package globally in a little less than a year from now.
On why it was important for the Amazon to go after the NBA: We've been constantly evaluating properties globally, literally on an everyday basis based on those evaluations. We've made acquisitions over the last few years, both here in the U.S. and internationally. Examples of that include top-tier soccer in the UK, in Germany, in Italy; Grand Slam Tennis; French Open in France; and, of course, Thursday Night Football here in the U.S. We view this as an extension of that. We've been partnering with both [the NBA and WNBA] for a few years, so we view this as the natural evolution of that process - of course, on a much larger scale.
On what aspects of Thursday Night Football coverage will carry over to Prime Video's NBA coverage: We are really proud of what we've done with Thursday Night Football. That success we hope can translate over to the NBA. I think there'll be an editorial way in which our talent talk to one another [and] the way we introduce storylines. That's something that we feel strongly about continuing. Yeah, I think you'll see a lot of that same fabric cut through.
On how technological innovations from TNF could make their way into NBA coverage: Innovation is at the forefront of everything we do, but part of our philosophy at Amazon Prime Video is, we don't do innovation for the sake of innovation. We don't do things differently just so we could say, We did this because it's different. It's going to be impactful, and it's going to matter for customers. We're looking to take some of those learnings and apply them to the NBA when it makes sense. It's across the board: it's also for our graphics, the way we editorialize the news of the day on Thursday nights, and the [pre/postgame shows].
On what the Prime Video NBA studio shows will look like and building a dedicated studio: No talent decisions to mention, [but] we're talking to a lot of folks across the landscape. A lot of whiteboarding sessions. Right now, we take all Thursday Night Football games on the road. That's 17 games [where] we do our entire pregame show and two postgame shows. It's going to be hard to take approximately 100 NBA games, including playoffs, on the road. We'll need a studio to support that; we're working through that right now. [It's] very likely to be built at Amazon Studios in Culver City, so it'll be an L.A.-based studio show. We're going to have a mix of single-header nights, double-header nights, potentially some triple-headers as well. That'll kind of be home base for those.
On Prime Video's taking over NBA League Pass next season: We've been, for a few years now, a distributor of NBA League Pass. The big difference is, next season, we'll be the exclusive digital distributor of NBA League pass, along with the NBA App. If you want to subscribe to League Pass starting next year and watch on a digital platform, you'll need to subscribe through Prime Video. We have a slew of engineers and product-tech colleagues working to build out a really elevated experience for our future League Pass subscribers.
On the possibility of moving the Emirates
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
Latino Film Institute Fellows Screen Their Short Films at the Egyptian Theatre
The Inclusion Fellowship and Spark Animation Grant uplifts 15 ...
29/05/2026
GLOOKAST LAUNCHES CINNAFILM TACHYON PLUGIN FOR MEDIA PRODUCER AND MEDIA SERVICES
This release first appeared here.
Visit our Tachyon product page or contact...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
Under New NBA Rights Package, Amazon Prime Video Will Handle Production End to End Internally' The streaming-service provider will also produce and distribute its WNBA games in-house By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. 
