According to industry reports, Amazon.com Inc. is close to a deal to bring NBA games to its Prime Video streaming service.
The league is also nearing a new agreement with Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, which is expected to keep the rights to the NBA finals but air fewer regular-season games, said the people asked not to be identified discussing nonpublic information.
Details on the number of games Amazon will have in the regular season and playoffs are still being ironed out.
Rights to the women’s league, the WNBA, are expected to be included in both deals.
Representatives for the NBA and Amazon declined to comment. ESPN didn’t respond.
The NBA’s incumbent partners are Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.
The league’s current media deals are worth a total of US$24 billion or over US$2.6 billion a year.
Those contracts expire after the 2024-2025 season.
The people said the NBA wants to double its income from TV rights and add at least one or two more partners.
The league is also talking to Warner Bros., whose Turner division has carried games since 1984, and Comcast Corp.’s NBC, which lost its basketball rights in 2002.
Sports are the biggest draw for major TV networks, making them must-have programming, especially as the audience for general entertainment programming has declined.
