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The NBA is looking to flex its own viewership muscle with Tuesday’s release of the initial part of its 2026–27 regular-season schedule, but the influence of the NFL was still impossible to miss.
The run-up to the NBA season began in earnest with the unveiling of the league’s opening night and Christmas Day games, with each set of contests leaning heavily in to marquee teams and players such as the defending champion Knicks, the Spurs and their phenom Victor Wembanyama, and the 76ers and newly acquired icon LeBron James.
The announcement of these games precedes Wednesday’s drop of additional showcase and NBA Cup games, and Thursday’s planned release of the entire 2026–27 slate. While the NBA has used various strategies over the years for its schedule unveiling, including a multiday effort last year with the arrival of new media-rights deals, this latest effort echoes the one now perfected by the NFL.
In May, the NFL and each of its domestic rights holders conducted a series of high-profile game reveals over a three-day period in advance of the full schedule drop on May 14.
For the NBA, the schedule dynamics are somewhat different, as the league still plays more than four times the number of games as the NFL does. But the core principles are very much the same: Both leagues are rallying heavily around their top teams and players, have a major presence during many fall and winter holidays, and want to establish as much early-season viewership momentum as possible.
A New Window for Appointment Viewing
While the 76ers-Knicks game in primetime on the NBA’s Oct. 20 opening, which will be ring night for defending champion New York, is clearly the showcase matchup of the day, the 3 p.m. ET contest between the Celtics and Pistons that day to begin the entire league schedule jumps out in its own way.
That afternoon clash on NBC features the top two Eastern Conference teams entering last season’s playoffs, and it extends a fast-growing trend around top sports events increasingly happening in weekday broadcast windows.
The recently concluded FIFA men’s World Cup, of course, showcased that dynamic, but recent Nielsen enhancements in measuring out-of-home viewership have made these nontraditional slots much more viable. Each of the other major U.S. pro sports leagues now has some type of meaningful presence in daytime windows.
The afternoon slot for the Celtics-Pistons game, meanwhile, will be a primetime broadcast in Europe when accounting for the time difference. That territory is increasingly important, particularly as the NBA is planning to begin a separate league there next year.
Christmas Clash
The NBA, meanwhile, will once again have a five-game slate of games on Christmas Day on ESPN and ABC, highlighted by a 2026 Finals rematch between the Spurs and Knicks, and then involving marquee teams such as the Celtics, 76ers, Lakers, Thunder, and Warriors.
That slate will go up against the NFL’s heightened presence across the holiday. After the NFL stages a Christmas Eve game between the Texans and Eagles on Amazon, it will have a Christmas Day tripleheader starting with a classic NFC North rivalry game between the Packers and Bears, followed by a 2025 playoff rematch between the Bills and Broncos, with both those streamed on Netflix, ending with a primetime matchup on Fox between the Rams and Seahawks.
There will likely be no contest in viewership, as the NFL’s 2025 Christmas games averaged 22.8 million viewers compared to the NBA’s 5.5 million viewers on the day.
Each league, however, continues to maximize its efforts to draw fans during the holiday. The NBA was also clearly mindful to not have any home-market overlaps between its own Christmas games and the NFL’s tripleheader. In particular, the Lakers will host the 76ers at 5 p.m ET in Los Angeles, with that game almost certainly done before the Rams face the Seahawks that evening in Seattle.
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