After months of a rumored handshake deal, the NBA has reportedly finalized contracts on its new 11-year, $76 billion national TV deal with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon — with TNT Sports still having the opportunity to match in a week-long window once the contracts are officially approved.
According to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, the new deal would put the NBA on national television almost every night of the week in some form, as he offered up a glimpse at what the new national TV schedule may look like.
Monday: Peacock
Tuesday: NBC
Wednesday: ESPN
Thursday: Amazon
Friday: Amazon and ESPN
Saturday: ABC, ESPN, and Amazon
Sunday: NBC and ESPN
The Thursday night package on Amazon and the Sunday night package on NBC will come after the NFL season (as will ESPN’s Friday game coverage). Amazon would also have the In-Season Tournament games, while NBC would carry Tuesday night games throughout the year and ESPN will trim down some of its regular season package but still carry games across four nights of the week. Peacock will also get an exclusive Monday night package as well.
Marchand notes that the agreements have been finalized and are expected to get approval from the NBA’s Board of Governors next week in Las Vegas, before being sent to TNT where they’ll have five days to decide whether to match or not. If they do, the Amazon package is the one they’d reportedly target.
In all, the league expects to have an official announcement on the new deal prior to the start of the Olympics, which would allow NBC to hype up their portion of the package during the Paris games.
As for the broadcast teams on the new networks, NBC figures to have Mike Tirico and Noah Eagle handling play-by-play, while Marchand reports Ian Eagle is at the top of Amazon’s wishlist but they’ll also be looking to add a few broadcast teams to its coverage.
