The NBA’s 2 new formats, the In-Season Tournament and the Play-in Tournament, would go to Amazon Prime Video as part of the league’s new rights deal.
According to reports Monday by Puck’s John Ourand, Amazon Prime Video will hold the rights to the NBA In-Season Tournament (renamed the NBA Cup starting next season) and the Play-in Tournament as part of the planned rights deal with the NBA. There had been speculation during negotiations that the NBA would sell the rights to the NBA Cup and/or the Play-in Tournament separately to a company like Netflix.
The deal with Amazon would also include a Conference Final every two years and the previously reported series of regular season and playoff games. On Monday it was reported that Amazon is seeking-and will probably get-a Saturday night window. This is assumed to mean an end to ABC’s occasional Saturday night games.
ESPN, according to Ourand, as part of its renewal will broadcast only Wednesday night regular season games, abandoning Friday night programming that has aired since the 2002-03 season.
While the network’s regular season programming will be significantly reduced, the same cannot be said for playoff coverage. Under the new agreement, the company will continue to hold the annual rights not only to the NBA Finals, but also to the Conference Finals.
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