“I think coming out of it, what you’ll see is that just in the same way these new media deals we entered into demonstrated the enormous interest in NBA and WNBA programming on a national and global basis, there’s no reason that shouldn’t translate on a local basis,” Adam Silver said last year when discussing the league’s new media rights deal. Beginning next season, the NBA’s broadcast landscape will look dramatically different, with coverage shifting away from TNT and into the hands of Amazon, NBC, Peacock, and other outlets. The record-breaking 11-year, $76 billion deal represents a massive bet on basketball’s long-term growth. But as Mark Cuban cautions, if the investment doesn’t deliver, the consequences could be sharp.

The former Mavericks majority owner, speaking on the Road Trippin’ podcast, made clear that owners are optimistic but not blind to the risks: they expect the deal to “pay off the way everybody thinks it will.” He also reminded his interviewers—Richard Jefferson, Kendrick Perkins, Channing Frye, and Allie Clifton—that as members of the media themselves, they know how complicated and volatile the business can be.

“It’s hard, you know, it’s hard from day to day, week to week, year to year, and you just don’t know, um, how this TV deal is going to hold up” said Cuban. “Like, Peacock paid the, um, NFL like a 100 million for one playoff game, and added 2.2 million something, um, subscribers. And when they did that, that made everybody think, ‘well, I’ll try to do the same thing with the NBA’. But now, those bets from the streaming companies that are going to be broadcasting this year have got to pay off. You know, Disney, ESPN, Peacock, Amazon, they’ve all got to be able to get a return on that dollar because if they don’t, then the whole thing could collapse”.

However, Mark Cuban wasn’t 100% sure of his opinion. He added that “I’m not saying it will. Don’t get me wrong. But I’m just saying, as a business guy, who tries to analyze the good news and the bad news, there’s still risk associated with what’s going on”.

According to ‘The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov, the new national media deals will pay NBA teams about $140 million each when they begin next season. The amount will reportedly escalate up to about $290 million in the final year of the contracts. While this remains, the local TV rights fees will still reportedly remain as important sources of revenue for franchises, especially for teams that left cable, since they will see their revenues drop.

The new networks are certainly going out of their way to attract the NBA audience. NBC will reportedly invoke the ‘nostalgia factor’ through the ‘NBA on NBC’ show, which will return after a 23-year hiatus. The show will officially bring back John Tesh’s ‘Roundball Rock’ track, which was a hit amongst the 90s and early 2000s viewers. NBC will also bring in Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan to be part of the NBA coverage, under the designation of a ‘special contributor’.

Meanwhile, the ‘NBA on Prime Video’ show will have renowned names like Stan Van Gundy, Brent Barry, and Dell Curry as color commentators. Additionally, Dwyane Wade, Steve Nash, and Candace Parker also have agreements to commentate on games under agreements that allow the three to serve as color commentators and studio analysts. The NBA on Prime Video studio show will be hosted by Taylor Rooks, and Blake Griffin, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, etc, will serve as studio analysts.

Additionally, the popular ‘Inside the NBA’ show will be moving to ESPN.

With the 2025-26 NBA season weeks away, no sources can yet confirm how the new media rights deal will work. The most one can hope is that Adam Silver’s recent remarks don’t do too much damage.

Adam Silver Asks Fans Who Can’t Afford Streaming To Switch To Highlights: “very much a highlights-based sport”

The new NBA Media Rights deal brings in one major issue: the costs. The NBA transitioning from traditional TV broadcasting to streaming services means that some fans will have to pay for multiple subscriptions. If Prime Video isn’t enough, they will have to choose between NBC/Peacock, ESPN, or choose all of them. Games of different teams will be divided up between the services. According to NBA reporter Shane Garry Acedera, fans have already raised complaints that watching basketball games has not only been made confusing but also expensive.

Adam Silver discussed this very affair on Wednesday during the Board of Governors meeting. However, instead of promoting the streaming services, the NBA commissioner said, “There’s a huge amount of our content that people can essentially consume for free. I mean this is very much a highlights-based sport. So Instagram, TikTok, Twitter you name it. Any service, the New York Times for that matter to the extent that your content is not behind a paid firewall. There’s an enormous amount of content out there. YouTube, another example that is advertising based that consumers can consume”.

Silver’s comments signal a bold pivot toward a profit-driven, streaming-heavy future with the new $76 billion media deal. Evidently, his suggestion to watch highlights instead of full games reflects the league’s adaptation to younger, social media-savvy fans, but it risks alienating die-hard viewers who crave the full experience.

Anticipate heated debates as fans and analysts question whether the NBA values revenue over accessibility, especially with rising costs pushing lower-income fans away—research shows a 15% viewership drop among them. Moving forward, we might see more free broadcast games to appease critics, alongside pressure on Silver to balance monetization with fan loyalty.

The 2011 lockout backlash could resurface if accessibility isn’t addressed, potentially forcing the league to rethink its strategy by mid-2026 as fan feedback rolls in.