It's Not You. NBA Streaming Is a Mess

After the flood of nostalgia from hearing Roundball Rock on the first NBA on NBC broadcast in more than two decades receded, NBA fans were likely left with a mix of confusion and frustration over the first 10 days of the season. There are more national broadcasts this year, but finding them is harder than it should be. 

This season, it’s no longer as simple as flipping 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 shouldn’t increase this feeling.

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The 2025-26 season marks the first under the NBA’s new media-rights deal, which will end the NBA on TNT era and bring games back to NBC. It also pushes the NBA into the streaming era with games appearing on Peacock and Prime Video each week of the season, as well as ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer streaming service. 

Here’s what you need to know about the new NBA media landscape and where to find which games on which nights on which streaming services. 

The NBA’s new broadcast partners

This season is the first in the 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, which far outpaces last season’s 172 national games.

Last year, you just needed a single live TV streaming service like Sling or YouTube TV that had ABC, ESPN and TNT for the national broadcasts each week of the season. Now, with exclusive Peacock games and the Prime Video slate, that one-streamer convenience is as outdated as the midrange jumpshot.

Here’s the breakdown of the national broadcasts:

• ABC/ESPN: 80 regular-season games
• NBC/Peacock: 100 regular-season games and the All-Star Game
• Prime Video: 66 regular-season games

Weekly schedule for the 2025-26 NBA season

There will be a national NBA broadcast four nights a week all season long:

• Monday: Peacock 
• Tuesday: NBC and Peacock
• Wednesday: ESPN
• Friday: Amazon Prime 

Starting midseason after the NFL and college football seasons are over, the schedule will expand to every night of the week and weekend afternoons 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 make the jump from TNT to ESPN this season. The 21-time Emmy award-winning show will still be filmed in its Atlanta studio and will still feature Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith. What has changed is the show’s schedule. Instead of weekly broadcasts, Inside the NBA will take place more sporadically around marquee regular-season matchups, Christmas Day games, and during the playoffs, including the conference finals and NBA finals.

The 3 streaming services you need for the NBA season

While you can watch many games on ABC, ESPN and NBC during the season with a cable TV or live TV streaming service, you’ll miss out on the streaming-only games featured on Peacock and Prime Video. 

For full coverage, NBA fans will need to subscribe to a trio of streaming services: Peacock, Prime Video and ESPN for a combined total of $50 a month. (If you’re already an Amazon Prime subscriber for the free two-day shipping and view it as a sunk cost, then ESPN and Peacock would cost you $41 a month.)

NBA games are back on 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 earlier 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 on Feb. 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 our Peacock review.

There’s nothing new about having NBA games on ABC and ESPN, but this season you can watch these games without cable TV or a live TV streaming service thanks to ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer streaming service.

For NBA fans, an ESPN Unlimited subscription will let you watch 80 regular-season games — that includes games shown on ESPN and ABC. It will show Wednesday night doubleheaders throughout the season before adding Friday night doubleheaders and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon games starting midseason.

The ESPN Unlimited plan costs $30 a month (or $300 a year) and lets you stream all of ESPN’s linear networks: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, ESPN Deportes, SEC Network and ACC Network. You also get access to programming on ESPN on ABC, ESPN Plus, ESPN3, SECN Plus and ACCNX. Read our ESPN Unlimited review.

(There’s also a $13-a-month ESPN Select plan, which is basically a rebranding of ESPN Plus. With it, you’ll have 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 stream 66 regular-season games this season, mostly Friday night doubleheaders that will include the group rounds of the NBA Cup in-season tournament. It will also show knockout rounds and championship game of the NBA Cup as well as a Black Friday game and two global games in Europe (Jan. 15 in Berlin and Jan. 18 in London). Also in January after the NFL and college football seasons are over, 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 a month or $139 a year. You can also subscribe only to Prime Video for $9 a month. Read our Prime Video review.

Local and out-of-market games

If you’re, say, a Celtics fan in Boston, a Knicks fan in New York or a Lakers fan in Los Angeles and care more about following your local team than watching national broadcasts, then you’ll need to subscribe to a TV service that carries your team’s regional sports network. Most RSNs are either part of the FanDuel Sports Network or NBC Sports Network. The two live TV streaming services with the most RSNs are DirecTV and Fubo. 

You can also subscribe to a FanDuel Sports Network RSN through Prime Video and an NBC Sports RSN via Peacock. Also, a handful of teams — the Dallas Mavericks, Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz — offer an in-market streaming option through NBA League Pass. 

Meanwhile, NBA League Pass remains the pick 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 the in-arena feed, adds the ability to download games and highlights for offline viewing, and lets you watch on up to three devices at once.