NBA signs new 11-year media rights deals with Walt Disney, NBC, Amazon

By Ovunc Kutlu

ISTANBUL (AA) - The National Basketball Association (NBA) announced Wednesday that it has signed new 11-year media rights agreements with Walt Disney, NBC and Amazon.

While the partnership with The Walt Disney Company was renewed, new agreements were made with NBCUniversal and Amazon under which ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock and Amazon Prime Video will telecast NBA games beginning with the 2025-26 season and running through the 2035-36 season.

"The NBA App will be a universal access point – seamlessly directing fans to every national game on Disney, NBCU and Amazon platforms," the men's professional basketball league in North America said in a statement.

The new deals will expand the reach of NBA telecasts, with all national games available on broadly distributed streaming services, as approximately 75 regular-season games will be on broadcast TV each season, up from the minimum of 15 games under the current agreement, it added.

"Our new global media agreements with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon will maximize the reach and accessibility of NBA games for fans in the United States and around the world,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.

“These partners will distribute our content across a wide range of platforms and help transform the fan experience over the next decade."

The association, in addition, said Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon also secured the right to distribute live game telecasts of the WNBA -- the women's professional basketball league in the US.

The new media rights agreements are expected to bring the league around $76 billion over 11 years, according to multiple media reports.

The NBA said in a separate statement that Warner Bros. Discovery’s most recent proposal, which was reported as $1.8 billion per year, did not match the terms of Amazon Prime Video’s offer.

"Throughout these negotiations, our primary objective has been to maximize the reach and accessibility of our games for our fans. Our new arrangement with Amazon supports this goal by complementing the broadcast, cable and streaming packages that are already part of our new Disney and NBCUniversal arrangements. All three partners have also committed substantial resources to promote the league and enhance the fan experience," it said.

NBA's current nine-year deal worth $24 billion provides national game coverage on ESPN/ABC and TNT, while it expires at the end of the 2024-25 season.