NBA ‘closing in’ on media rights deals worth $76 billion with NBC, ESPN and Amazon: Report

The NBA is dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s as the league closes on new media rights deals.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the NBA is “closing in” media rights deals with NBC, Disney/ESPN and Amazon that amount to a staggering $76 billion over 11 years.

In a time of increasing reliance on recording content and cord-cutting, sports content has proven to attract a live and reliable audience. The league is taking advantage of the media companies’ seemingly insatiable appetite for live sports that results in bidding wars.

The $76 billion figure averages out to just over $6.9 billion a year, representing a stunning 265% increase over what the NBA was getting from Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD), Disney/ESPN and ABC in the current deals.

The new deals will exclude WBD, owner of Turner Sports, which has shown NBA games since 1989. While WBD can match any package of the others, the report indicated its heavy debt load has tied its hands financially.

Disney/ESPN will pay an average of about $2.6 billion annually in the new deal, more than the $1.8 billion in the current contract. Disney/ESPN will have the league’s “A” package, which includes the NBA Finals, a conference final, weekly primetime games and the WNBA, but they will get less regular season games in the new deal.

NBC will pay $2.5 billion annually for the league’s “B” package. The network will receive about 100 games each season, half of which will be exclusively on Peacock, its streaming service. Some games will air on NBC in primetime on Tuesday and could feature a “Basketball Night in America” on Sunday, after the NFL season concludes. NBC is expected to receive conference semifinals and a conference final.

The Prime Video’s “C” package, which costs $1.8 billion annually, includes the In-Season tournament and Play-tournaments, along with both regular season and playoff games including the conference finals.