Peacock will reportedly be a significant component of Comcast’s expected rights deal with the NBA.
Comcast is set to carry about 100 games per season in its looming rights deal with the NBA, of which “about half” will air exclusively on its Peacock streaming service, according to Joe Flint, Amol Sharma and Isabella Simonetti of The Wall Street Journal. It was not clear whether the 100 game total is just for the regular season or includes playoffs.
The remaining games would air on NBC Tuesday and Sunday nights, with the Sunday games scheduled around NBC’s Sunday Night Football commitments. The Tuesday games would mark the first time the NBA has ever had a regular slate of weeknight games on broadcast television.
Comcast’s USA cable network was not mentioned in the piece, though previous reporting has indicated that it will carry games.
No NBA game has ever aired exclusively on a streaming service, but that is about to change significantly in the new rights deal. Beyond the 50 or so games on Peacock, Amazon is set to acquire the league’s new “C” package and ESPN’s “A” package is said to include the right to put exclusive games on ESPN+.
After two decades in which the overwhelming majority of NBA games aired on basic cable, the league is poised in its new deal to distribute a plurality of its games via streaming services. Assuming Warner Bros. Discovery is unable to secure a fourth package of games — a faint possibility that has nonetheless been mentioned in the recent reporting — ESPN is the only linear cable network that is a lock to carry games. It does not appear likely that ESPN alone will carry more games than the combination of Amazon and Peacock.
