Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) drives around Brooklyn Nets guard Mikal Bridges (1). (AP Photo)
The media rights deals were approved by the league’s Board of Governors last week and will bring the league about $76 billion over those 11 years.
The NBA signed its 11-year media rights deal with Disney, NBC and Amazon Prime Video on Wednesday after saying it was not accepting Warner Bros. Discovery’s $1.8 billion per year offer to continue its longtime relationship with the league.
The media rights deals were approved by the league’s Board of Governors last week and will bring the league about $76 billion over those 11 years.
Jay Marine is finally able to relax and celebrate after a hectic couple of months.
The global head of sports programming for Amazon Prime Video found out Wednesday afternoon that they will be carrying the NBA beginning with the 2025-26 season, along with ESPN/ABC and NBC. Warner Bros. Discovery matched Prime Video’s $1.8 billion per season offer to carry NBA games, but the league said the proposal did not match what Prime Video offered.
“The NBA had to go through their process and evaluate what other parties had sent in,” Marine said. “I felt very good about what we were able to offer the NBA and I think they did as well as their owners. That’s the part we controlled. And we, like everyone else, had to wait and see how the rest would play out.”
Amazon’s 11-year agreement includes 66 regular-season games, including a doubleheader on Thursday nights after the NFL’s regular season is over. It also includes all six NBA Play-In Tournament games, about one-third of the games in the first two rounds of the playoffs and the knockout rounds of the NBA Cup in-season tournament. It will also carry one of the conference finals series for six seasons.
The more intriguing parts, though, are what Prime Video gets internationally. It will be the global distributor for NBA League Pass as well as an expanded package of games for Mexico, Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Britain and Ireland. That includes a minimum of 20 regular-season games, the conference finals each year and the NBA Finals in six of the 11 years of the deal.
The European countries are new as Prime Video is already streaming games in Mexico and Brazil.
In an April letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Prime Video had more than 200 million monthly viewers.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said during the past year leading up to negotiations that expanding steaming options, as well as expanding reach globally, were major objectives for the new media deals.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – Associated Press)
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