NBA on Prime Video

WNBA coverage

In May 2021, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) announced a three-year rights agreement with Amazon Prime Video. As part of the agreement, Prime Video acquired the exclusive global rights (excluding China, Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Finland, and Germany) to 16 WNBA games per season along with the WNBA Commissioner's Cup final. The agreement marked the first time Prime Video acquired the exclusive global rights to a women's professional sports league.^[1][2] In April 2024, the WNBA and Prime Video announced a two-year extension of the agreement. The extension increases Prime Video's exclusive regular season games from 16 to 20. Prime Video will continue to air the Commissioner's Cup final.^[3][4]

In April 2022, Prime Video announced an agreement with the WNBA's Seattle Storm. The agreement gives Amazon the right to stream all Storm games not selected for exclusive national television in Washington state only.^[5][6]

NBA rights deal

On October 20, 2022, Prime Video acquired the rights to broadcast NBA during the 2022–23 season in Brazil.^[7][8]

On July 24, 2024, Prime Video announced an 11-year rights agreement with the National Basketball Association and an 11-year extension with the WNBA beginning with the 2025–26 NBA season and 2026 WNBA season respectively. For the NBA, Prime Video will hold the rights to 66 regular season games per season in the US (86 in international markets), the knockout rounds (including the semifinals and the finals) of the NBA Cup, all NBA Play-In Tournament games, select first and second-round NBA playoffs games, and 6 NBA Conference Finals, airing one series on odd years plus the final season of the contract in the US (with all NBA Conference finals and 6 of the 11 NBA finals for international markets). For the WNBA, Prime Video has the rights to 30 regular season games per season, one series of the first round of WNBA playoffs each season, 7 WNBA Semifinals and 3 WNBA Finals, while continuing to air the WNBA Commissioner's Cup final.^[9][10][11]

The agreement was announced despite the fact, two days prior, TNT Sports announced that it had exercised a clause in its contract with the NBA to match the NBA's contract with Amazon. Because the NBA did not reach an agreement with TNT prior to the match, TNT would have lost the rights to the NBA if they had not exercised the clause.^[12] When the NBA announced that Amazon had officially acquired the rights, the NBA revealed they had rejected TNT's attempt because TNT was unable to fully match the terms of Amazon's contract.^[13] TNT released a response arguing the NBA had "grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights" forcing TNT to take "appropriate action".^[14] On July 26, TNT filed its lawsuit against the league in a Manhattan New York state court, seeking to delay the NBA's new 2025 media deals from taking effect and to rule that TNT's offer matched Amazon's deal.^[15]

In September 2024, WBD accused the NBA of including "purposely onerous or immaterial" conditions in the Amazon contract that would have made it logistically impossible for TNT to match the contract, including a provision that the NBA coverage must be aired on a platform that also carries National Football League (NFL) games (alluding to Amazon's rights to Thursday Night Football).^[16] On November 17, WBD and the NBA agreed to a legal settlement, effectively clearing the way for Amazon to become an NBA media partner.^[17]