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After a flood of nostalgia from hearing Rock the round ball In NBC’s first NBA broadcast in more than two decades, NBA fans were likely left with a mixture of confusion and frustration through the first 10 days of the season. There are more national radio shows this year, but they’re harder than it should be to find.
This season, it’s no longer as simple as clicking on the TV and searching two or three channels to find the game. To watch every national NBA game this season requires three separate streaming services. Life is hard enough. Watching sports should not increase this feeling.
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The 2025-2026 season marks the first season under the NBA’s new media rights deal, which will end the NBA on TNT era and return games to NBC. It also pushes the NBA into the streaming era with games appearing on Peacock and Prime Video every week of the season, plus ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer streaming service.
Here’s what you need to know about the NBA’s new media landscape, where to find games, on which nights and on which streaming services.
Victor Wembanyama has quickly become a talent to watch, but figuring out how to watch or stream San Antonio Spurs games this season seems harder than it should be.
New NBA Broadcast Partners
This season is the first in a new 11-year deal between the NBA and its three media partners: Disney (ABC/ESPN), NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock) and Amazon (Prime Video). There will be 247 national broadcasts across this trio this season, far more than the 172 national games last season.
Last year, I only needed one Live TV streaming service He loves sling Or YouTube TV which has ABC, ESPN and TNT for national broadcasts each week of the season. Now, with Peacock exclusive games and Prime Video’s slate, this one-stream feature is as outdated as the mid-range Jumpshot.
The following is the national broadcast distribution:
- ABC/ESPN: 80 regular season games
- NBC/Peacock: 100 regular season games and the All-Star Game
- Prime Video: 66 regular season games
Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks will be part of the national broadcast a league-high 34 times this season.
Weekly schedule for the 2025-26 NBA season
There will be national NBA broadcasts four nights a week throughout the season:
- Monday: Peacock
- Tuesday: NBC and Peacock
- Wednesday: ESPN
- Friday: Amazon Prime
Starting midseason after the conclusion of the NFL and college football seasons, the schedule will expand to include every weekday night and weekend afternoon with these additions:
- Thursday: Amazon Prime
- Friday: ESPN
- Saturday afternoon: Amazon Prime
- Saturday night: ESPN and ABC
- Sunday afternoon: ESPN and ABC
- Sunday night: NBC and Peacock
One last item for NBA fans: The best studio show in sports, Inside the NBA, will move from TNT to ESPN this season. The 21-time Emmy Award-winning show will continue to be filmed at its Atlanta studio and will still feature Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith. What changed is Show schedule. Instead of weekly broadcasts, Inside the NBA will air intermittently around regular season games, Christmas Day games, and during the playoffs, including the Conference Finals and NBA Finals.
Led by reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Oklahoma City Thunder are the favorites to repeat as NBA champions entering the 2025-26 season.
The three streaming services you need for NBA season
Although you can watch many games on ABC, ESPN and NBC during the season through cable TV or a live TV service, you’ll miss out on streaming-only games available on Peacock and Prime Video.
To get full coverage, NBA fans will need to subscribe to three streaming services: Peacock, Prime Video and ESPN for a total of $50 per month. (If you’re already subscribed to Amazon Prime for free two-day shipping and see it as a sunk cost, ESPN and Peacock will cost you $41 per month.)
NBA games return to NBC for the first time since 2002. NBC and Peacock will broadcast 100 regular-season games, including exclusive Peacock games on Monday nights and the All-Star Game. Doubleheaders will be shown on NBC and Peacock on Tuesday nights, with the former game shown on NBC in the Eastern and Central time zones and the later game shown on NBC in the Mountain and Pacific time zones. Starting February 1, NBC and Peacock will show NBA games on Sunday nights.
You can stream every NBA broadcast on NBC with Peacock’s $11-per-month premium plan. Read Peacock’s review.
There’s nothing new about having NBA games on ABC and ESPN, but this season you can watch those games without cable TV or a live TV service thanks to ESPN’s new consumer streaming service.
For NBA fans, an ESPN Unlimited subscription will let you watch 80 regular-season games — including games shown on ESPN and ABC. Wednesday night doubleheaders will be featured throughout the season before adding Friday night doubleheaders and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon games starting midway through the season.
The ESPN Unlimited plan costs $30 per month (or $300 per year) and lets you stream all of ESPN’s linear networks: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNNews, ESPN Deportes, SEC Network, and ACC Network. You can also access programming on ESPN on ABC, ESPN Plus, ESPN3, SECN Plus and ACCNX. Read our ESPN Unlimited review.
(There’s also a $13-per-month ESPN Select plan, which is basically a rebranding of ESPN Plus. With it, you’ll get access to thousands of live games — think small college conferences, whose games you can’t watch anywhere else — but not the NBA.)
Prime Video will broadcast 66 regular-season games this season, most of them Friday night doubleheaders that will include the group rounds of the NBA Cup. It will also show the knockout rounds, the NBA Cup championship game, as well as the Black Friday game and two international games in Europe (January 15 in Berlin and January 18 in London). Also in January, after the NFL and college football seasons end, Prime Video’s NBA schedule will expand to include games on Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons.
Prime Video is included with an Amazon Prime subscription for $15 per month or $139 per year. You can also just subscribe to Prime Video For $9 a month. Read our Prime Video review.
Local and out-of-market games
If, for example, you’re a Celtics fan in Boston, a Knicks fan in New York or a Lakers fan in Los Angeles and more interested in following your local team than watching a national broadcast, you’ll need to subscribe to a TV service that carries your team’s regional sports network. Most RSNs are either part of FanDuel Sports Network or NBC Sports Network. The two live TV services with the largest number of RSNs are DirectTV and Fubo.
You can also subscribe to FanDuel Sports Network RSN through Prime Video and NBC Sports RSN through Peacock. A group of teams — the Dallas Mavericks, Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz — also offer a great opportunity. Broadcast option in the market Through the NBA pass.
Meanwhile, NBA Pass It remains the perfect choice for serious fans who want to be able to watch every out-of-market game every night of the season. The Basic plan with commercials costs $110 for the season. The Premium plan costs $160 for the season and replaces commercials with an in-arena feed, adds the ability to download games and premium features for offline viewing, and lets you watch on up to three devices simultaneously.