The NBA has the framework of an agreement in place with Amazon Prime Video that will make the streaming giant one of the league’s primary homes beginning in 2025-26, reports Andrew Marchand of The Athletic.
According to Marchand, Prime Video is on track to secure the rights to “significant” regular season and postseason games, including possibly some conference finals. The expectation is that Amazon’s deal with the NBA will cover at least 10 years.
ESPN/ABC (Disney) also appears set to return as an NBA rights holder, according to Marchand, who says the NBA Finals are expected to remain on ABC through the next TV deal. Like Amazon’s deal, a new agreement between ESPN/ABC and the league will likely run for at least a decade beginning in 2025-26, Marchand adds.
As has been previously reported, after years of having deals in place with two major rights holders (ESPN/ABC and TNT Sports), the league is looking to expand to accommodate at least three media-rights holders in these negotiations. So the fact that TNT Sports (Warner Bros. Discovery) doesn’t yet have a deal lined up doesn’t mean that the network won’t continue to broadcast the NBA beyond the 2024-25 season.
However, unless the NBA reaches deals with four separate partners — which is a possibility — TNT Sports may end up going head-to-head with NBC (and its streaming service Peacock) for the final package of games, per Marchand. Warner Bros. Discovery would have the right of first refusal, Marchand notes, but NBC could try to structure a deal in a way that would make its offer difficult to match.
As existing rights holders, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery had an exclusive negotiating window with the NBA this spring, but that window closed on Monday night, opening the door for the league to talk to Amazon, NBC and other potential partners.
Although Amazon and ESPN/ABC have serious momentum toward deals with the NBA, there are still some details to work out, according to Marchand, who points out that the existing TV packages will have to be reduced slightly to make room for the incoming third partner. For example, in one scenario that has been discussed, ESPN’s per-season inventory would be cut back from about 100 games to 80ish, executives briefed on the talks told The Athletic.
The NBA’s current nine-year, $24 billion media rights deal runs through the 2024-25 season, so there’s no urgency to complete the new agreement in the immediate future. But it sounds like it will likely be done sooner rather than later. Previous reports suggested the league would likely have a new media rights deal in place by this summer.
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