In the first on-the-record comments by a media partner in the NBA’s pending $76 billion TV rights bonanza , Comcast president Mike Cavanagh said Tuesday that the league will be a fixture for NBCUniversal for “decades to come.”
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The exec said Comcast expects an 11-year deal with the NBA will “soon” be announced. Thus far, a drip-drip series of reports in various media outlets, attributed to anonymous sources, have indicated that Disney has re-upped with the league. A third package is being pursued by Prime Video and Warner Bros Discovery.
After reports indicated Amazon had secured the rights, WBD on Monday said it was asserting its matching rights , introducing a wrinkle in the long-gestating set of agreements.
“We don’t believe that the resolution of matching rights will affect the package that we expect to be awarded,” Cavanagh said today on Comcast’s second-quarter earnings call.
Cavanagh did not confirm reports that Comcast shelled out a hefty $2.5 billion on average per year, but he did provide some details of the rights that were secured. Starting with the 2025-26 season, he said, 100 regular-season games will air across NBCU platforms, more than what appears on any other NBA partner’s outlets (or via WBD or Disney, the current rightsholders). First- and second-round playoff series will also be exclusives, as will six conference finals over the 11-year deal term.
Peacock will get 50 exclusive regular-season and post-season games, Cavanagh said, including national Monday night games and doubleheaders. WNBA games are also part of the package, with that league seeing spectacular ratings momentum over the past couple of years.
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The NBA “brings in a broad, diverse and youthful audience that is culturally relevant,” the exec said. Its arrival is a “testament to our breadth and reach.” NBC was a key media partner of the NBA during the league’s meteoric rise as a global force in the 1980s and 1990s. The network’s coverage of Michael Jordan’s run of championships was a cornerstone of sports media during the latter part of the 20th century, before ESPN and ABC took over the NBC package in the early 2000s.
The addition of the nine-month NBA season also “completes our year-round calendar of sports,” Cavanagh said, pointing to other marquee properties like the NFL, Premier League, golf and the Olympics.
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Comcast, Cavanagh emphasized, will be “putting the full weight of our company behind the NBA for decades to come.”
The NBA’s media deals represent the next milestone in a run of major sports-rights transactions, highlighting the value of live sports not only to pay-TV but for streaming platforms.
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