The deal
North American basketball’s NBA officially confirmed lucrative new 11-year media rights deals with Disney, NBCUniversal (NBCU), and Amazon, last week to end a protracted sales process.
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The trio have secured rights from the 2025-26 season through 2035-36.
The league will, therefore, end its relationship of almost four decades with Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) Turner Sports (TNT) after the upcoming 2024-24 season.
However, a legal battle is set to take place between the NBA and WBD after the league rejected the media giant’s matching rights offer.
WBD filed a lawsuit against the NBA on Friday in New York County Supreme Court alleging that the league breached its contract with the company by turning down its offer and instead signing a deal with Amazon.
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By GlobalDataThe final season of their long-standing tie-up will now be played out against the backdrop of a court case.
Why it matters
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has said the new deals will “maximize the reach and accessibility of NBA games for fans in the United States and around the world.”
In addition to rights in the US, Disney will distribute NBA games on ESPN-branded assets in several international markets, including Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, and the Netherlands, and via Disney+ in select markets in Asia and Europe.
NBCU’s parent Comcast will distribute games in several European markets through pay-TV giant Sky (including the UK) as well as in the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa.
Meanwhile, Amazon will also broadcast the league globally through its Prime Video service, with an expanded package of games in select territories, including Mexico, Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the UK, and Ireland.
Prime Video will also become the NBA’s strategic partner and third-party global destination of NBA League Pass, the league’s subscription service, with expanded distribution rights for League Pass in the US and internationally.
WBD claims to have matched Amazon’s offer, but the NBA rejected this notion, stating that the bid did not match the retail giant’s terms.
The league ultimately preferred the breadth of coverage and extensive reach offered by Amazon and the option of adding a streaming package to its offering.
Conrad Wiacek, head of analysis and consulting at Sportcal (GlobalData Sport), commented: “The NBA has evidently looked to move on from its long-standing relationship WBD, looking to embrace a mixture of traditional and new media by partnering with NBC, ESPN, and Amazon as part of its next media rights deal.
“While WBD had a matching clause in its contract and has chosen to execute that clause by matching the value of Amazon's deal, the reality is that WBD cannot match the distribution platform that Amazon can provide, with Amazon looking to take on regional broadcasts as well as centralized national games.
“The irony is that had WBD exercised its claim earlier in the process it likely would have a media rights package at a cheaper cost than the $1.8 billion deal Amazon has in place and would have avoided any legal action. By taking the NBA to court, WBD will either lose the rights at significant expense in terms of legal fees, or will force a partnership with a rights holder that doesn't want to work with them.
“Unfortunately for WBD, it seems to have burnt its bridges with the NBA, which is unlikely to have rejected the matching clause unless they felt extremely confident of their legal position. CEO David Zaslav said WBD didn't need the NBA, but his actions very much suggest otherwise.”
The details
Disney, NBC, and Amazon will pay a combined $76 billion to show live games for 11 seasons.
The agreements include a record number of national games on television, with approximately 75 regular-season games to be aired each season, up from the minimum of 15 games under the current agreement.
The main package will be held by the NBA’s long-standing partner Disney (ABC/ESPN), who will pay the largest amount at around $2.6 billion per year, up from $1.5 billion in the current agreement.
Disney will air a total of 80 regular-season games per season, including more than 20 games on ABC and up to 60 games on ESPN.
During the playoffs, ABC/ESPN will show approximately 18 games in the first two rounds each year and one of the two Conference Finals series in 10 of the 11 years of the agreement. ABC will remain the exclusive home of the NBA Finals, which it has broadcast since 2003.
Meanwhile, NBCU, which will pay $2.5 billion, will have rights to show up to 100 regular-season games per season – with more than half of the games airing on the linear NBC channel.
In the playoffs, NBC and/or Peacock will air approximately 28 games in the first two rounds, with at least half of those games airing on NBC. The network will also telecast one of the two Conference Finals series in six of the 11 years on a rotating basis with Amazon, beginning with the 2025-26 season.
Amazon’s deal includes rights to air 66 regular-season games on Prime Video each season, including Thursday night double-headers beginning in January, Friday evening double-headers, select Saturday afternoon games, at least one game on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), and the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and final of the Emirates NBA Cup in-season tournament.
Prime Video will also show all six NBA Play-In Tournament games, while its playoffs coverage will feature approximately one-third of the first and second rounds each year.
Additionally, Prime Video will share one of the two Conference Finals series in six of the 11 years with NBCU, beginning with the 2026-27 NBA season.
Disney, NBCU, and Prime Video will also broadcast more than 125 WNBA games annually from 2026 to 2036.
The WNBA Finals will rotate between the trio, while Prime Video will expand distribution rights for the WNBA League Pass service globally.
