The NBA’s $76 Billion Media Deal Is Here — and It Changes How You Watch.

The NBA agreed in July 2024 to an 11-year media-rights package worth roughly $76,000,000,000 — the richest rights deal in the league’s history. That deal is no longer a press release about the future. It took effect with the 2025-26 season and runs through 2035-36, and it is the reason your NBA viewing now looks different than it did a year ago.

Three companies split the league: Disney (ABC and ESPN), NBCUniversal (NBC and Peacock), and Amazon Prime Video. Notably absent is Warner Bros. Discovery, whose TNT had carried the NBA for nearly four decades. The familiar “NBA on TNT” banner — and the studio show Inside the NBA — are gone from Turner.

For fans, the headline number matters less than the practical one: where the games live now, and how many subscriptions it takes to follow your team. The short answer is that there is more NBA on free broadcast TV than there has been in years — and, at the same time, more of it locked behind streaming services you may not already pay for.

• $76,000,000,000 — total value of the 11-year package, running 2025-26 through 2035-36 · Source: ESPN; CBS Sports
• $2,600,000,000/yr — Disney's annual payment (ABC/ESPN) — the largest of the three partners · Source: ESPN; Awful Announcing
• $2,500,000,000/yr — NBCUniversal's annual payment, returning the NBA to NBC after about two decades away · Source: ESPN; NBA.com
• $1,800,000,000/yr — Amazon Prime Video's annual payment — its first NBA package, replacing Warner Bros. Discovery · Source: ESPN; CBS Sports
• ~75 games — regular-season games on free broadcast TV each season, up from a minimum of 15 under the old deal · Source: NBA.com; Awful Announcing

The NBA finalized the package in July 2024 after a long courtship of every major broadcaster and streamer. The result: three 11-year agreements that, combined, are worth about $76,000,000,000. Disney pays roughly $2,600,000,000 a year, NBCUniversal about $2,500,000,000, and Amazon around $1,800,000,000. That is roughly a 160% jump in annual national-rights fees over the prior deal — a figure the league points to as proof the sport’s value is rising even as cable television shrinks.

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The three partners do not simply share games evenly — each has a defined lane. ESPN/ABC keeps the crown jewels: the NBA Finals every year, Christmas Day games, and the Conference Finals in 10 of the 11 seasons, alongside roughly 80 regular-season games. NBC/Peacock returns with up to about 100 regular-season games, the Opening Night doubleheader, and All-Star Weekend. Amazon Prime Video takes all of the play-in tournament, roughly a third of first- and second-round playoff games, and the Conference Finals in 6 of the 11 years.

The most emotional storyline for longtime fans is the one that left the table: Warner Bros. Discovery. TNT had aired the NBA since 1989, and its studio show Inside the NBA — with Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal — became the gold standard of sports television. When the league accepted the Amazon bid over WBD’s attempt to match, that nearly 40-year run ended. In a twist, Inside the NBA itself was licensed to ESPN/ABC, so the show survives even though the network that built it does not carry the games anymore.

“The NBA on TNT is over after nearly four decades. The familiar voices remain — they just moved to a new address.”

On the end of Warner Bros. Discovery's NBA run

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Here is the part that hits a fan’s wallet. There is genuinely more free NBA than before — about 75 regular-season games on broadcast TV (ABC and NBC) each year, up from a minimum of 15. But the national schedule is now split across three streaming services: Peacock, Prime Video, and ESPN’s direct-to-consumer app. A fan who wants to follow the full national slate could find themselves paying for all three on top of any cable or local package — the very fragmentation cord-cutters were trying to escape.

The trade-off is real. Casual fans who only watch the Finals and the occasional marquee game come out ahead — those land on free over-the-air ABC and NBC. The die-hard who wants every nationally televised matchup is the one who pays, and pays in more places. That is the central tension of the streaming era distilled into one sport: accessibility for the many, fragmentation for the devoted.

From the NBA’s side, the logic is straightforward. Cable subscriptions are in long-term decline, and the league wanted partners with real streaming reach for the next decade, not just legacy cable channels. Amazon brings Prime’s enormous subscriber base; NBC brings Peacock plus the marketing muscle of an Olympics broadcaster; ESPN brings its new standalone streaming app. Locking all three in for 11 years gives the league guaranteed money — about $76,000,000,000of it — and a distribution footprint built for where audiences are heading, not where they used to be.

The NBA’s $76,000,000,000deal is the league betting on streaming’s future while keeping a foot planted in free broadcast TV. For most fans, that means more nationally televised games on ABC and NBC than they have seen in years — a genuine win. For the most committed viewers, it means assembling a patchwork of Peacock, Prime Video, and ESPN to see everything, and saying goodbye to nearly four decades of NBA on TNT. The games are not going anywhere. Finding them just got more complicated — and, depending on how much basketball you want, more expensive.

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Last updated June 20, 2026