NBA on television

[1] Since the 2002–03 season, broadcast channel ABC, and pay TV networks ESPN and TNT have nationally televised games.

Two new partners are set to join ESPN/ABC in televising the NBA in the 2025–26 season, with NBC Sports and Amazon Prime Video replacing TNT.

[2][3] As one of the major sports leagues in North America, the National Basketball Association has a long history of partnership with television networks in the United States.

Similar to NFL, the lack of television stations led to NBC taking over the rights beginning the very next season until April 7, 1962—NBC's first tenure with the NBA.

Even a merger with the American Basketball Association in 1976, bringing several standout players including Julius Erving into the league, did not reverse the ratings slide.

CBS, not wishing to preempt higher-rated regular programming for the relatively low-rated pro basketball, elected to show several playoff games each season tape-delayed into late-night time slots.

Beginning with the 1982 NBA Finals, the schedule was shifted to avoid the May television sweeps period, and tape-delayed games were no longer an issue.

Turner Sports then replaced ESPN and USA Network as national cable partners under a four-year deal beginning with the 1984-85 season, in which TBS shared the NBA television package along with CBS.

[4] During NBC's partnership with the NBA in the 1990s, the league rose to unprecedented popularity, with ratings surpassing the days of Johnson and Bird in the mid-1980s.

NBC had made a four-year $1.3 billion ($330 million/year) offer in the spring of 2002 to renew its rights, but the NBA passed and opted for ABC/ESPN's higher bid.

The NBA extended its national TV package on June 27, 2007, worth eight-year $7.4 billion ($930 million/year) through the 2015–16 season,[5] during which the league had its new resurgence leading by a renewed Celtics–Lakers rivalry and LeBron James.

Saturday and Sunday coverage of the first two rounds have then been typically split between ABC, ESPN, and TNT, with specific time slots and exceptions varying throughout the years since 2003.

Since 2001, the most watched Christmas games were: 2004 Miami Heat vs Los Angeles Lakers on ABC averaged a 7.3 rating and 13.18 million viewers.

[8] On November 9, 2007, when the Houston Rockets with Yao Ming faced off against the Milwaukee Bucks with Yi Jianlian, over 200 million people in China watched on 19 different networks, making it the most-viewed game in NBA history.