The NBA and WNBA on Wednesday announced a slew of media rights deals worth around $76 billion over 11 years that will keep the NBA Finals on ESPN and ABC while adding new partners in Amazon and NBC.
But there could be complications. Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns longtime NBA partner TNT Sports, informed the league this week that it exercised what it believes to be matching rights for the Amazon deal. The league rejected that match, and a legal fight could loom. Still, the NBA is pushing ahead.
The agreements, which are set to begin after next season, amount to an incredible windfall for the leagues and are expected to lead to the first $100 million annual salaries in American sports. Here’s everything you need to know.
Where can I watch games?
Disney-owned ESPN and ABC will continue to broadcast the largest package of NBA games, including the NBA Finals and one conference finals series most years. More than 20 regular season games will appear on ABC — usually on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons — and ESPN and ABC will broadcast all five Christmas games.
Advertisement
But the league will have two new partners: Amazon and NBC, which will alternate broadcasting the other conference finals each year. During the regular season, NBC’s Peacock streaming platform will exclusively broadcast games on Monday night, while NBC will air the All-Star Game and dozens more games on Sunday and Tuesday nights. Amazon will broadcast games Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights and also will air at least one game on Black Friday and the NBA’s in-season tournament. Amazon also will distribute the play-in tournament games in the postseason.
NBC will be an NBA partner for the first time since it aired games throughout the 1990s, when its theme song, “Roundball Rock,” and Michael Jordan’s heyday were part of a golden age for the league. Amazon continues its push into live sports to help its burgeoning ads business after landing the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” two years ago.
As for fans, they will now need a cable package and subscriptions to ESPN Plus, Peacock and Amazon Prime to watch NBA games.
Advertisement
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.
What about the WNBA?
The WNBA, amid the league’s exploding popularity and TV ratings, is set to receive $2.2 billion over 11 years, according to a person familiar with the figures. The NBA negotiated this deal on behalf of both the WNBA and NBA. The amount represents a substantial increase from the current media deals for the league, which are valued at around $60 million per season, and will help the WNBA increase player salaries and put the league and its teams on better financial footing.
There are two additional WNBA packages, currently on Ion and CBS, that will be negotiated later this year and are expected to raise the total value of the WNBA’s broadcast rights.
The WNBA Finals will rotate among NBC networks, ESPN/ABC and Amazon. The deal calls for at least 25 regular season games on Disney platforms each season, at least 50 on NBC platforms and at least 30 on Amazon’s Prime Video.
How much are the deals worth?
Big bucks. Disney is paying nearly double the amount of its previous deal, up to $2.6 billion per year from $1.4 billion. NBC will pay $2.5 billion and Amazon around $1.8 billion each year. The staggering amounts are far above the national TV deals for Major League Baseball ($1.9 billion per year) and the NHL ($625 million) though still behind the NFL., which nets more than $10 billion per year.
Why are they worth so much money?
The NBA’s regular season TV ratings have declined by some 30 percent over the past 10 years, which caused some media prognosticators to question how much the NBA would be able to collect in its new deals. But those dips don’t look so bad compared with entertainment television. According to Sportico, the four broadcast networks lost 80 percent of their prime-time viewers in the 18-to-49 age demographic over the same period.
Advertisement
In a continually fragmenting media landscape, the NBA is leaning heavily on broadcast TV, with NBC and ABC, and streaming while moving away from cable. The league took advantage of traditional media companies squeezing what they can out of the old models of distribution and streaming platforms that want to use live sports to draw new subscribers.
What’s happening with TNT?
The Amazon piece of the deal isn’t buttoned up because TNT remains a wild card. TNT Sports believes it has the right to match Amazon’s portion of the deal and informed the NBA it was doing so this week. The NBA rejected TNT’s matching attempt, saying TNT failed to explicitly match the terms of the deal.
Warner can now mull its options, including suing the league. One thing is certain: There will be lawyers and a lot of billable hours. “We have matched the Amazon offer, as we have a contractual right to do, and do not believe the NBA can reject it,” TNT Sports said in a statement Wednesday, 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.”
Advertisement
If Warner’s quest to hang on to the NBA is unsuccessful, it will save billions but will still need to find programming that ensures cable providers still pay a premium price to carry TNT. The network has signed smaller deals to broadcast the French Open and Big East college basketball in coming years and has sub-licensed multiple College Football Playoff games from ESPN.
Will Charles Barkley still be an analyst?
Sir Charles is arguably the best-known sports broadcaster in the country. He joined TNT after he retired from the NBA and has been with the network for more than 20 years. If TNT’s legal challenges don’t net the network any NBA games, he will have one more season left on TNT’s “Inside the NBA.” He has said he will retire after that, but he has threatened retirement before and almost certainly will get a few offers from the NBA’s other media partners.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMCxu9GtqmhqYGeBcHyWaGltZ56Xrm7DzZuYZqaSmHqiucCzpqdllai9r3nRop6hrKNk