It’s been at least one week since the NBA announced its next chapter in the television world. Although the winners of the rights sweepstakes weren’t a surprise, there were some minute details which were revealed that were unexpected.
We’ve decided to pick twelve of those nooks and crannies and break down what it means for your sports viewing future. The one thing you will notice as we delve into all of these new details is that the NBA is emulating a lot of the NFL’s tactics and working their hardest to become a 365-day sport even when the final buzzer sounds at the NBA Finals.
Let’s take a look.
1) Summer League on the move
Half of the Summer League now airs on ESPN, the other half airs on NBA TV. The NBA TV half is moving to Amazon Prime.
For Amazon, this helps fill out its sports lineup even more throughout the year. It makes the streaming service a must have for basketball junkies especially if an NBA Draftee like Copper Flagg ends up making his professional debut on Prime. As of now, local RSNs are able to simulcast ESPN’s Summer League broadcasts. Will they be allowed to under Amazon’s reign or will that be even MORE inventory that is taken away from them?
2) NBA RedZone
ESPN has the right to create an NBA version of RedZone during the nights they own rights to games (Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturday). The NBA already produces its own version of RedZoneknown as CrunchTime. It occasionally airs on NBA TV but is broadcasted regularly on League Pass. The show takes viewers around to different games and showcases the last couple minutes of close games, hence the name.
ESPN will have the right to produce a similar type of show with live look-ins and real-time highlights. The show will also feature segments on fashion, culture, player arrivals, interviews and feature pieces that profile the players in depth.
A show like this airing on ESPN2 while ESPN is airing its own slate of games non-exclusively works great for the fan who may not be interested in the teams playing on ESPN flagship but still wants to be in tune with what’s happening in the world of basketball. It’s a perfect way to have an alternative broadcast without it actually being an alt-cast, some of which can be underwhelming for fans at times when the quality of the alt-cast doesn’t match the quality of the gamecast.
ESPN has a plethora of basketball talent that doesn’t always get exposed on First Take or NBA Countdown. This is a chance for the Worldwide Leader to display those talents and experiment to see what emerging audiences are intrigued by.
ESPN and the NBA can use this broadcast as a canvas to create the future of sports media. It’ll also be awesome for fans to whip-around to teams in the league they don’t normally pay attention to and for teams who don’t normally get national acclaim to shine on the Worldwide Leader. It’s a show with potential.
3) All-Star Futures Game
Speaking of potential, the USA Network will be NBC’s home of potential stars. There are no plans right now to broadcast any NBA games on the network, which means ESPN will be the exclusive cable home of men’s professional basketball. But USA Network isn’t being left out of the deal.
USA will have the rights to air WNBA games. They’re currently airing all of Team USA’s games during the Olympics and they’re expected to follow suit in Los Angeles. The cable home of Atlantic 10 college hoops will be home to rising high school stars looking for a chance to compete in college.
The Nike Hoop Summit will move from FS1 to USA and will be in front of a bigger audience and most likely receive more promotion than its previous rights holder given the natural gravitation basketball fans will make to NBC platforms as they get used to the NBA’s new schedule. And USA Network will air an international All-Star game every April featuring men’s and women’s players 19 and younger.
4) WNBA Finals rights
Prime Video and NBC will air the WNBA Finals in some years. ESPN wasn’t ready to give up exclusivity of the NBA Finals, so with the big paychecks Amazon and NBC are providing, they both told the NBA “I’m leaving outta here with something!” And they did. Here is a list of when each network will carry the WNBA Finals beginning in 2026.
NBC/Peaco*ck: 2026, 2030, 2034.
ESPN/ABC: 2027, 2029, 2031, 2033, 2035.
Amazon’s Prime Video: 2028, 2032, 2036.
As more fans fall in love with women’s sports and in particular women’s basketball, the $2.2 billion these media partners are paying for WNBA rights is going to look like the biggest steal in sports media. Expect all of these media partners to invest a lot of time and money in the production, talent and storytelling that surrounds the WNBA Playoffs. There may even come a day by the time these TV rights are over that the WNBA isn’t producing any of their own games at all.
Just this year, CBS finally made the switch over from league-produced games to hiring their own crews to staff broadcasts. The prestige of the WNBA Finals will intensify year after year as rivalries form and audiences continue to find the league. The only thing the WNBA has to worry about right now is a labor dispute caused by the lack of a major rights fees increase that was expected. If they can avoid that, the WNBA Finals will start to compete with the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals and World Series in the ratings game.
5) The Bubble documentary
ESPN is creating a documentary with the NBA about the quarantine season. The last time ESPN and the NBA collaborated on a major documentary,The Last Dance, it created classic moments and memorable memes that are still used to this day. It changed the dynamic of one of sports’ most successful duos—Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. It also dominated sports and pop culture headlines as the world was battling with a life changing pandemic.
The stakes are high for this next collaboration.
If ESPN and the NBA are willing to go as far as they did during the last go-around, there may be awards and critical acclaim on the way. Between Lou Williams leaving the Bubble for wings at Magic City in Atlanta, the Bucks walking out after the shooting of Jacob Blake, the players holding a conference call with former President Barack Obama to decide whether to continue the Bubble season, Rachel Nichols’ private conversations leaking to the New York Times causing her eventual departure from ESPN and LeBron James winning his first championship as a Laker while the team reels from the passing of Kobe Bryant—the storylines write themselves.
All of this took place at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports complex, so there has to be video that was taken which we’ve never seen before and has never been used for any other purposes. It would be presumed that no one had better access to what was happening than ESPN itself.
6) A boost for ESPN Bet?
ESPN will create more betting content with the NBA to boost ESPN BET. ESPN’s bet on betting is in trouble. Despite the influx of legal sports betting, it is clear there has been an excess of options. BetRivers is rumored to be shutting down soon. Other sports books are teetering on survival. Penn Entertainment, ESPN BET’s owner, has been forced to lay off employees due to the underperformance of the app. ESPN’s own talent has even roasted the product live on ESPN’s air.
With this new deal, NBA and WNBA highlights can be shown in-app. Betting-focused shows and specials can also be created using NBA footage. Will this be enough for folks to switch to ESPN BET? I’m not sure about that, but it’s worth a try. As technology develops, it’s also good to be able to have these rights in case you need them even if ESPN doesn’t effectively use them right away. But as already shown, it’s a steep climb to take market share away from DraftKings and FanDuel.
7) Marvel partnership
The NBA and Marvel will team up to create content for younger generations. – If you ask any sports league what their biggest worry is right now, it’s that they don’t know how to attract the young viewers. The NBA got paid handsomely because it can attract young viewers but does Generation Alpha have the same affinity for televised sports? Will they have it as they fall in love with YouTubers and TikTokers? The NBA is trying to solve its issue with a company that always wins the young at heart no matter what era we’re in—Marvel.
The obvious collaboration we’ll probably see at some point is an alt-cast with Marvel characters playing a basketball game that is synchronized in real time with an NBA game. Disney has already done this with NHL and NFL games before using their Big City Greens and Toy Storyfranchises respectively.
Marvel and ESPN have already teamed up on an alt-cast in the past during a 2021 Warriors/Pelicans matchup. But to further grow the game, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see NBA cameos during a future Marvel movie. Marvel and the NBA have already collaborated in the past on jersey designs. Are court designs during the Emirates NBA Cup next?
8) NBA x Disney collab
The NBA will have its own space at Walt Disney World Resort. During the pandemic, the NBA made itself feel at home in such a grand way that there will now be a dedicated space for the league at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports at the resort in Orlando. As visitors come throughout the year, they’ll constantly get exposed to the league whether it’s in season or not. And if they achieve their goal, younger people who visit this attraction will spread word of mouth about what they experienced and it will lead to affinity for the league.
9) Prime Video and League Pass
Prime Video will be the NBA’s main partner trying to get subscribers to NBA League Pass and WNBA League Pass. We haven’t received too much clarification about what this means yet, but from what we do know from the press release Amazon sent out, Prime Video will “be the strategic partner and third-party global channels store destination.”
We can assume this may mean that other streaming services that sell third-party global channels won’t be allowed to sell League Pass, but we haven’t gotten clarification yet. According to reports written after the deal was announced, viewers should still expect to be able to subscribe to League Pass on regular MVPDs like Xfinity, Spectrum and even YouTube TV. Amazon will be responsible for finding ways to convince viewers to subscribe to League Pass through Prime and will probably have major influence over the look, feel, design and output of the product.
It’ll be interesting to see if Amazon merchandise is sold through League Pass or even through games that will be available on the main platform of Prime. Amazon’s exclusive NFL Black Friday game is expected to lead into a Black Friday NBA game that should continue to do bonkers numbers.
10) Team USA games
It was always a little weird when Team USA’s games leading into the Olympics were televised on ESPN or Fox even though the finished product would always end up on NBC. Just like how weird it was for the NCAA Tournament play-in game to air on ESPN before the tournament expanded to 64 teams. When you’re used to a network and a specific sporting event being associated together for decades, there’s a symbiotic connection that makes your mind go berserk when the puzzle pieces don’t fit.
Finally, the puzzle has come together. NBC will air all of Team USA’s pre-Olympic and pre-FIBA World Cup games from both the men’s and women’s side all the way up to 2036. A majority of those games will be exclusive to Peaco*ck, although you should expect some of the big matchups to also air on USA or NBC.
11) Global rights
Disney, NBC and Amazon have split most of the world with the exception of China and Russia, and will not only distribute games in the U.S. but around the world. This is part of the core reason why WBD is not a part of this deal. The reach that Disney and Amazon have worldwide compared to most American brands is untouchable.
As the league continues its constant strive to be a global game, it’s going to need partners that are already established in various markets around the world and already understand the respective cultures. It probably helps the NBA to streamline these processes rather than dealing with a million different companies all at once. NBC also gets some credit with this bullet point because parent company Comcast also owns one of the premier sports brands in the UK and Europe—Sky Sports.
Telemundo will broadcast 10 games a year including the All-Star Game in Spanish. It’s essential that the NBA continues to try to grow its fan base even within North America where there is always room to grow. Aligning the league with the television home of the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup for Spanish-speaking audiences and some of Mexico’s most popular soccer teams is a net positive.
12) The future of NBA TV
There is no mention of NBA TV’s future, which means TNT Sports could still be involved with coverage in some way, shape or form in the future. No guarantees though. If fans get their wish based on social media requests, TNT will be able to stay involved with the game by operating NBA TV. Based on how the current lawsuit between TNT and the NBA is going, the likelihood of this happening is slim to none. A man can only dream!
Correction:This piece initially incorrectly stated that ESPN’s Summer League inventory was moving to Amazon. It’s NBA TV’s inventory that’s moving.
