The NBA's New Broadcast Cycle: ESPN, NBC, Amazon Prime — and the End of TNT

The 2025-26 NBA season is the first under the league’s new 11-year national rights deal. It is the most significant reshuffle of NBA broadcast rights since the league’s mid-1990s move from NBC to TNT, and it produced three meaningful changes: a returning carrier, a new carrier, and the end of a long partnership.

The returning carrier: NBC Sports

NBC Sports is back on the NBA after a 23-year absence. NBC last carried the league in the 2001-02 season, ending with the famous Lakers three-peat era; the network now returns with a national package that includes Tuesday-night double-headers and a Sunday afternoon window. The NBC games stream on Peacock as well as airing on broadcast NBC. Selected marquee Tuesday-night fixtures get a Peacock-exclusive treatment.

The return of NBC matters editorially. The network’s pre-1990s and 1990s NBA coverage defined how the league looked on American television; the John Tesh “Roundball Rock” theme remains one of the most recognised pieces of sports broadcast music in the country. Whether NBC reuses the theme this cycle remains unconfirmed, but the network has retained the rights to do so.

The new carrier: Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime Video is new to the NBA. Amazon’s package covers Thursday and Friday night national games, the in-season NBA Cup tournament final rounds, and a share of the first-round playoff games. Amazon’s NBA programming is included in the standard Prime Video subscription with no separate sports fee, the same arrangement Amazon uses for Thursday Night Football.

The departed carrier: TNT Sports

TNT Sports is no longer carrying the NBA. The TNT-NBA partnership ran for 36 years, 1989 to 2025, and produced Inside the NBA, the most acclaimed sports studio show in American television. The 2024-25 season was the final TNT NBA year; the studio show’s future was a separate negotiation that ESPN ultimately acquired the rights to broadcast on its own channels starting with the 2025-26 season.

The retained carrier: ESPN

ESPN and ABC continue as a national rights partner under the new cycle. ESPN retains the NBA Finals (alternating with NBC for the Christmas Day showcase) and a slate of regular-season Wednesday and Saturday games. Inside the NBA, the former TNT property, now airs on ESPN as a wraparound show on Wednesday and selected playoff nights.

What it means for the viewer

The practical change is that a viewer who previously paid for TNT alone to watch the marquee Thursday-night NBA double-headers now needs to choose between Amazon Prime (Thursday-Friday national), NBC Peacock (Tuesday-Sunday national), and ESPN (Wednesday and Saturday national). The cost has spread; the convenience has narrowed.

For out-of-market viewers, NBA League Pass remains the option of last resort at $24.99 per month for the standard tier, every non-local NBA game that is not on national broadcast.

The playoff carriers also rotate: NBC and Amazon will host first-round playoff games for the first time this cycle. The Conference Semifinals and Conference Finals are split between ESPN, NBC and Amazon. The NBA Finals air on ABC every year under the new deal, the one constant in the new arrangement.

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