The NBA’s highly-anticipated new media rights deal is finally here. After lengthy negotiations to figure out which networks will serve as the league’s broadcast partners going forward, the confirmed in a statement the long-reported news that three places won out: Disney, Amazon, and NBCUniversal. The deal will run through 2035-36, and while the NBA did not confirm a price on the deal, reports have indicated that it will bring in $76 billion over the next 11 years.
“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,” Adam Silver said 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.”
In an unsurprising bit of continuity, Disney will continue to be the league’s top broadcast partner, which means that it will get the opportunity to broadcast the NBA Finals, as it has done since 2003. Additionally, the network would get one conference finals matchup in ten of the 11 years of the deal, along with 80 regular season games, all of the Christmas Day games, the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, NBA Draft, NBA Draft Lottery and half of the games that make up NBA Summer League games.
NBC and Amazon will be the two other participating networks — the former was a longtime NBA broadcaster before its partnership with the league came to an end in 2002, while Amazon has been slowly but surely growing its footprint in the world of live sports in recent years. For NBC, this arrangement will give them the league’s opening night, more than 100 regular season games, and all of the events at All-Star weekend other than the Celebrity Game. Amazon will get the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals of the NBA Cup, along with the Play-In Tournament and 66 regular season games. Both will get a conference finals broadcast in six of the 11 years.
The regular season games will be divvied up based on nights of the week. Disney will get games on Sunday afternoons, along with Saturday, Wednesday, and Friday nights; NBC will get Sunday and Tuesday nights; and Amazon will get Thursday and Friday nights, along with Saturday afternoons. Streaming will also be an important part of the deal, with Peacock getting a Monday doubleheader every week, Amazon airing all of its content on Prime Video, and both ESPN and NBC airing its nationally broadcast games on its apps.
The biggest question mark has been Turner’s future in this landscape, as the network missed its exclusive negotiating window with the league, which made it easier for NBC and Amazon to swoop in. Much was made of the fact that Turner had the ability to match either network’s offer, but right before the deal was announced, the league announced that Warner Bros. Discovery failed to match Amazon’s package like it intended.
