Here are the details of the NBA’s new 11-year, $76 billion deal with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon
The dust is yet to settle following the NBA’s announcement of a new mammoth broadcasting rights deal, but what do we know about the agreement so far?
With TNT looking more likely to take legal action against the league, it’s clear that the NBA’s shift from its long-time broadcast partner is going to be anything but smooth. Yet, as things stand it appears it will happen one way or another which brings us to the details of the league’s new contract with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon.
A closer look at the NBA’s new deal
After an official announcement from the league on Wednesday, we now know that the NBA has agreed to a new national television deal with the Walt Disney Company (which airs games on ESPN and ABC), NBC Universal, and Amazon. According to reports, the 11-year deal is worth $76 billion. For the purpose of context, the nine-year deal that the NBA currently has which airs games nationally on ESPN, ABC, and TNT is worth $24 billion and concludes at the end of the 2024-25 season, meaning the new deal will begin at the start of the 2025-26 campaign and run through the 2035-36 season.
To be clear, Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns TNT, is not part of the new NBA broadcasting deal, a move that has seemingly infuriated the TV giant to the extent that legal action now appears to be a certainty. Indeed, in a statement released by TNT, the company made it clear that it “does not believe the NBA can reject”, before adding “We think they have grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-26 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action.”
Where the deal itself is concerned, it’s worth noting that it will see the NBA’s annual national media revenue multiplied by approximately 2.6 times which needless to say, is a whole lot. Now, the last time the NBA such an increase was almost a decade ago in 2016, when the salary cap spiked by roughly 34%. While such a jump isn’t likely to happen with new league rules mandating that the cap can’t rise by more than 10% annually, the general consensus is that it will bump up by 10% per year for the foreseeable future beginning in the 2025 offseason.
“Our new global media agreements with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon will maximize the reach and accessibility of NBA games for fans in the United States and around the world,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver in a statement. “These partners will distribute our content across a wide range of platforms and help transform the fan experience over the next decade.” This of course brings us to the details of the deal itself as they relate to what networks will broadcast what and when. You can see some of those details below:
- ABC will retain the NBA Finals. Where the conference finals are concerned, ABC/ESPN will also air one of the two of them during 10 of the 11 years in the deal. Christmas Day games as well as other marquee Saturday and Sunday games during the regular season will remain on ABC/ESPN, with both networks airing approximately 18 games in the first two rounds of the postseason each year.
- NBC will air one of the conference finals series in six of the 11 years of the deal. NBC will also cover the All-Star Game, NBA All-Star Saturday night, opening night, and Sunday night primetime games. NBC and/or Peacock will air approximately 28 games in the first two rounds of the playoffs each season, and half or more of those games will be broadcast on NBC.
- Amazon will air one of the conference finals series in six of the 11 years of the deal. Amazon’s Prime Video will get to stream the NBA Cup games as well as the NBA’s Play-In Tournament games. Prime Video will stream approximately one-third of the first and second postseason rounds each year.