The Most Interesting Findings From The NBA’s Unsealed Media Deals

Warner Bros. Discovery’s legal battle against the NBA after losing TV rights has revealed in-depth details of the league’s new media deals with both NBC and Amazon.

If you’d like to see the complete rundown of all the bullets, Sports Media Watch has a great breakdown of every single stipulation. But for our purposes here, we wanted to focus on a handful of the most interesting revelations to come out of the unsealed documents.

Up front, neither NBC nor Amazon will be able to air Christmas games, so that will remain the sole domain of ESPN. Both partners also get two-week flex scheduling windows to swap games in the same timeslot if one becomes less interesting for a national TV audience.

NBC

Frontloaded Week

NBC’s deal includes 100 regular season games, and those are split between a handful of day and time slots. The contract includes “at least” eight national primetime Sunday games, national Monday night games and regional Tuesday night games. That’s as far as the schedule goes before the playoffs, though, making NBC and/or Peacock your early-week destination for games.

Betting On Betting

The contract allows betting to be incorporated, but is pretty vague about how that takes place beyond adhering to “league rules.” It does say that bets can’t be placed directly through NBC unless the NBA approves. This is different from the Amazon betting language (see below).

NBA Tonight

This already exists in some capacities but is getting more formalized in the deal. “NBA Tonight” will be an NFL RedZone equivalent and the language reads like it will exist across all partners and NBA League Pass games

Promo Stipulations

According to the deal points, there’s a slew of major NBC events that must promote the NBA. Those include, but are not limited to: Sunday Night Football, applicable Super Bowl games, Olympics, Big Ten fotoabll/basketball, Kentucky Derby, Premier League, NASCAR, WWE Smackdown, Thanksgiving Day Parade, Thanksgiving Day Dog Show, Tonight Show, Telemundo’s World Cup games, award shows and more.

This ties directly into one of the most notable Amazon bullets, which we’ll get to below…

Amazon Prime Video

Backloaded Week

Amazon’s portion of the deal will sit in the Thursday through Saturday timeframe. The contract notes Amazon gets 60 games, including one or two games on Thursdays and Fridays, plus Saturdays here and there to hit the 60-game mark. The NBA can also cut out as many as five Friday night games to air on ESPN between Jan. 1 and Mar. 31, which is where that Saturday stipulation comes in.

Black Friday Focus

The contract notes that Amazon Prime Video will get one or two Black Friday games each year, likely airing after the (assuming annual) Black Friday NFL game. This makes a lot of sense for Amazon given its emphasis on the shopping holiday. The ties to the NFL are also a theme for both NBC and Amazon’s portions of the media rights.

Big Game Bonanza

Amazon will get its own announcement show for the NBA Cup, plus exclusivity (no RSNs either) around the NBA Cup semifinal and finals, and the Play-In Tournament games every spring as well. Under the current TV structure, these are major one-off events. Having them streaming-only starting in 2026 is a very big deal. Playoff games getting exclusivity to Amazon and no RSN distribution is also a huge boost to the streaming service.

Betting Even MORE On Betting (And Shopping)

As mentioned, NBC has some allowances for betting, but there appear to be some hoops to jump through there. On the other hand, the deal states that Amazon can use X-Ray, Rapid Recaps, AI visualizations (Prime Vision), betting and shopping integrations like QR codes during games.

It also notes that NBA-authorized products will be available during games, utilizing Prime payment credentials (and benefits like one-day shipping). This level of integration is something only Amazon can do as a rights partner, and makes the NBA games a very interesting sandbox for both sides of this deal to play in throughout broadcasts in a way that could really push shoppable advertising forward.

NFL Ties That Bind

Amazon’s ability to air NBA games is contingent on airing 13 live NFL games during a given season, or at least three non-NBA sporting events rated among the top 100 U.S. telecasts in a year. With the Thursday Night Football deal’s current structure, this should be a simple hurdle to clear. But it’s interesting that the NBA ties Prime Video’s viability as a partner directly to its ability to keep the NFL relationship — thus positioning Amazon to remain a major player in the market’s priciest sports right for the foreseeable future, whether it wanted to be (it does) or not.

Are there plenty of other details? Certainly. But those are the most interesting ones that have come to light as the NBA positions itself for the future. At least on paper, it’s easy to see why the league was so eager to sign on with Amazon, especially after WBD didn’t find an agreement in the exclusive negotiating window.