NBA Viewership Up 16% in Year 1 of New Media Deal

The NBA’s first season under its new media deal delivered strong viewership growth.

The league announced on Wednesday that it averaged 1.78 million viewers for the 2025–26 regular season across its national games on NBC, Peacock, Amazon Prime Video, and ESPN networks, up 16% from last year. It’s also the most-watched season in seven years.

Viewership is based on Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel, a measurement system adopted last year that has boosted numbers across the board. Additionally, NBC includes Adobe Analytics to track its streaming numbers.

This season, the league has also emphasized its reach numbers, announcing that 170 million people in the U.S. watched NBA games across its different broadcast and streaming partners, up 86% from last year.

In addition to re-upping with Disney’s ESPN, the NBA cut ties with Warner Bros. Discovery and brought on NBCUniversal and Amazon as its two new media partners this season, the first of an 11-year, $77 billion deal. The partnership allowed the NBA to add 75 new national games this season, bringing the total from 172 to 247.

NBC, which last aired NBA games in 2002, is the primary reason the NBA was able to deliver increased viewership, as it increased the league’s presence on broadcast television. The network announced Tuesday that it averaged 2.8 million viewers, up 109% compared to comparable windows last year.

The network also delivered the NBA’s most-watched All-Star Game since 2011. The exhibition, which featured a revamped USA vs. World format, drew 8.8 million viewers, nearly double of last year. It helped that the format was significantly more competitive than in recent years, but numbers were also boosted by the Winter Olympics lead-in.

ESPN—which also airs some primetime showcases on ABC—has yet to announce its viewership numbers. But broadcast TV continued to deliver the most average viewership.

Total time spent watching the NBA was up 22% across all national partners this year, driven by the 128% increase on broadcast networks, Fox president of insights and analytics Michael Mulvihill noted on Twitter/X.

Amazon’s Prime Video announced Tuesday it averaged 1 million viewers across 67 games, which is down 35% compared to the league’s 1.53 million average viewership across ABC/ESPN and TNT last year. Prime aired 53 games in similar windows that linear networks did last season, averaging 1.09 million on those games, down 2% compared to last year.

Streaming-only numbers are expected to dip compared to linear television, as has been the case of the NFL with Thursday Night Football on Amazon. But sports leagues have continued to prioritize deep-pocketed streaming services, in part because of their ability to reach younger audiences.

The NBA on Prime median age was 46.9, nine years younger than the average age on linear television. Amazon’s coverage has received positive reviews throughout the season, but the streamer’s reliability is still in question.

The stream of Tuesday’s play-in tournament game between the Hornets and Heat cut for nearly two minutes during a crucial moment in overtime. It was Prime Video’s first postseason game, and the streaming giant owns rights to the play-in tournament and several playoff series in the 11-year media deal.

The overall viewership numbers are a positive mark for the NBA a year after its declining viewership received significant scrutiny.

But the league has had other problems that have tainted this season, including allegations of salary cap circumvention against the Clippers, gambling scandals involving former players and coaches, and a league-wide tanking epidemic.