NBA Media Rights May Hit $7B Per Season With ESPN And Likely Newcomers Amazon and NBC

The NBA is in line for a massive payday from its future broadcast and streaming partners, and that should come as no surprise.

The intriguing part is that the reported number of $7 billion per season — or around there — would be an increase of almost a whopping 170 percent from its current $2.6 billion per year deals with ESPN and TNT. 

And now, as we relayed here, it could come with current rights holder ESPN/ABC, as well as streaming giant Amazon Prime, and NBC Sports.

NBC Sports would replace Warner Bros. Discovery-owned TNT, and that would indeed bring an end to the widely popular Inside the NBA studio show. Ernie Johnson, for one, would remain with TNT and Charles Barkley, for another, would become a TV free agent.

Meanwhile, NBC reportedly would broadcast games on both network television and stream others on its Peacock app. Amazon has an interest in streaming Saturday night games.

“According to sources, Amazon has been pushing for a Saturday night window, and that looks likely to happen,” wrote John Ourand of Puck. “As part of its agreement, Amazon will carry the NBA’s In-Season Tournament … and the postseason play-in games.”

Anyway, TNT isn’t out of the running just yet.

“Amazon will pay approximately $1.8 billion per season, according to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic,” wrote RealGM. “The deal will include the Conference Finals every other year as they will alternate with whoever wins the third rights between NBC and TNT. It also will include the NBA Cup and In-Season Tournament. 

“TNT can match NBC’s offer of $2.5 billion per season and talks are ongoing.”

ESPN’s deal with the NBA, meanwhile, reportedly will cost $2.6 billion per year.

Interestingly, NBA TV ratings aren’t as high as they used to be — far from it. But sports rights are highly profitable for networks, typically bringing in loads of advertising.

As one TV insider told Hoops Wire: “The networks and streaming services aren’t as concerned with eyeballs as they are with advertisers, and (advertisers) really just want to be part of the game and feel like they’re part of what of the cool kids are doing. They’re spending money and lots of it just to be considered cool. The actual ratings are very overrated in today’s world. They have money to burn. They don’t care about that.”

No matter how you spin it, this will be considered a big win for NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and frankly, his biggest victory to date once the deal goes down.