Details are slowly emerging regarding the NBA's recent media rights deals with Disney, Comcast and Amazon.
The NBA reportedly struck new media rights deals last week, with Disney (ESPN/ABC) retaining the lead package that includes the annual NBA Finals, while newcomers Comcast (NBC/Peacock) and Amazon each secured their own packages with regular season and playoff inventory. Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT) will attempt to exercise its corresponding rights as an incumbent partner in the coming days, but the effort is unlikely to bear fruit.
Since the initial report, new details have emerged about how each network's inventory will be split up. Initial reports stated that Comcast and Amazon would alternate years airing the conference finals, with ESPN airing the other, but one year into the NBA's new 11-year contract, that arrangement is slightly different. Andrew Marchand of Athletic.
Comcast and Amazon are each granted rights to six conference finals under their contracts with the league. That means there will be one year during the new deal where ESPN will not broadcast the conference finals. It's unclear which year that will be, but it would be an interesting development as ESPN's NBA playoff coverage would be significantly shifted from the second round to the Finals. For the remaining 10 years of the new deal, ESPN will broadcast the conference finals in partnership with either NBC or Amazon.
In other NBA media rights news, NBC will broadcast the NBA All-Star Game and NBA All-Star Saturday Night (including the Dunk Contest and Three-Point Contest) every year under the new deal. Alex Sherman of CNBCESPN will continue to broadcast the Celebrity All-Star Game on Friday night.
TNT has aired the All-Star Game 22 consecutive times since it first aired on cable television in 2003. If the networks fail to make a comparable effort, the 2025 All-Star Game would be the first to be broadcast on terrestrial TV since NBC televised the 2002 All-Star Game.
Of course, there is a risk that TNT will lose its NBA rights. Behind the scenes of the NBA It is fluid. CNBC On Thursday, Charles Barkley Barkley reiterated his stance that he has no plans to work for any other network besides TNT, saying he is hopeful that TNT will get a “last-minute reprieve” to retain some NBA rights, but that after 25 years at TNT, he “wouldn't feel comfortable working for any other network.”
Depending on how TNT's matching efforts go, the NBA could announce a new deal just weeks before the Olympics begin on July 26.
