NBA Preparing to Sell Streaming Rights, Perhaps Starting at $1 Billion

The NBA is preparing to sell exclusive streaming rights to the highest bidder, with the price tag likely set at about $1 billion, per Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports.

Apple and Amazon are expected to be the main candidates, with Amazon seeking to add the NBA to a streaming package that already includes the NFL, McCarthy reported.

Right now, the NBA uses its own platforms, as well as those from national broadcast partners ESPN and TNT, as well regional sports networks, for living streaming of games.

“We value our media rights partnerships with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery and we know our fans have come to expect us to deliver content through both traditional and emerging methods,” an NBA source told McCarthy.

Another said that Amazon is “locked and loaded” in its efforts to land an NBA package, via McCarthy.

Amazon is in its first year of carrying Thursday Night Football, and NBA owners reportedly would like a similar arrangement, with a streaming package of around 20-40 games a season.

But Apple would undoubtedly be a player, too. 

As McCarthy wrote, “Apple dwarfs even Amazon in annual sales and market capitalization.”

As we relayed previously, the league is seeking upward of $75 billion in its next media rights package, which begins in the 2025-26 season. NBA broadcast rights are currently held by ESPN/ABC and TNT.

“I would say that all of the leading technology companies are interested in the NBA. Amazon is just one of them. I think Apple, I think Google. All of them,” former NBA and ESPN executive John Kosner said, via McCarthy.

Kosner currently heads Kosner Media as a media adviser.

“And keep in mind the definition of what’s a ‘rights package’ going forward doesn’t have to be what we grew up with,” he said, via McCarthy. “A company like Discord (a social platform with 150 million monthly users) could become an NBA rights holder at some point, too. I think they’re all interested.”