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A business group that counts Amazon as a member bought an ad for Wednesday night’s NBA Finals game to fight proposed New York City legislation that would force the e-commerce giant to hire thousands of delivery workers — and raise customers’ bills by hundreds of dollars per year. The TV spot bought by the New York State Business Council will make the City Council’s Delivery Protection Act known to millions of Knicks fans tuning into the game on ESPN. The bill from far-left Queens Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán “would break Amazon’s same-day and two-day delivery, making it harder to get the essentials,” according to the 30-second ad, which implores local pols not to “break what’s working for New York families.”
CHARLES BARKLEY: "I think that Adam Silver's got to get a hold of this thing. I think the games are too disjointed right now. Like NBC, Peacock, Amazon, we've got, I think we have disrespected the fans. They don't know when the games are on. I just think that's really unfair to the fans. And I understand, Adam, I love Adam. Adam's a great guy. But he took the most money, but man, it's hard for me. When we weren't having games, I had to go to my app and see where the game was at."
Prime Video, the new global broadcaster of some NBA games this season, will not be broadcasting the NBA Finals in the United States. However, the Amazon-owned platform is preparing a show with an international cast to cover the season's final game in all its other territories. According to our sources, Frenchman Nicolas Batum will be among the panel of commentators appearing on the massive 1200 m² set, located in Culver City, amidst the MGM studios . The Clippers player, also expected to commentate on the 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup for TF1, will speak in English, but the show will be broadcast in France with subtitles.
The WNBA has significantly increased its record-setting media deal. The WNBA’s 11-year deal is worth $3.1 billion with partners Disney (ABC/ESPN), NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock), Amazon (Prime Video), Paramount (CBS), Scripps (Ion), USA Sports (USA Network), and NBA TV, a source familiar with the league’s deals confirmed to Front Office Sports. The average annual value of the new media deal is $281 million, about 6.5 times more than the previous deal’s AAV of $43 million. The WNBA added CBS, Scripps, and Amazon as partners over the last few years, bringing its total media revenue to around $60 million last year.
Whitworth was referring to Jared Stacy, Amazon’s VP of global live sports production. The three-time All-Pro offensive tackle invited Griffin to join him for a round of golf with the executive. As they played, Stacy gauged Griffin’s interest in going into media. But Amazon didn’t have the rights yet, so he had nothing to offer. And Griffin—who was still a month away from formally announcing his retirement—didn’t seem intrigued, anyway. “It was pretty much nonexistent on my priority list,” Griffin told FOS of his broadcast pursuits. “I had no interest.”
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Those decisions could crystallize as soon as Friday. According to industry sources, the NBA wants to know by the end of this week whether their preferred choices Amazon and YouTube TV are ready to bid for and house the league’s national streaming RSN in time for the 2026-27 season. Those sources said if Amazon and YouTube TV waffle -- entirely possible if the league can’t guarantee 20 teams will opt into the platform by next fall -- then the NBA will almost certainly delay an aggregated streaming platform another year until the 2027-28 season to provide more time to launch the venture.
NBA games on NBC are averaging 2.6 million viewers on average, while ESPN/ABC games are averaging 2.06 million viewers, and streaming-only games on Amazon are averaging 1.06 million viewers. By those numbers, the NBA is winning the viewership battle of late. Yet, MLB has posted better numbers for big events in recent years. The 2025 World Series far surpassed the NBA Finals in viewership for their two respective Game 7s: Thunder-Pacers drew 16.61 million viewers, while Dodgers-Blue Jays averaged 25.98 million viewers. That was a continuation of a recent trend in viewership for the two sports, where average viewership for the World Series surged above the Finals.
Prime Video announced an April 16 premiere date and released the official key art for Jerry West: The Logo, a feature-length documentary, from Propagate and Khalabo Ink Society, that traces the life and career of NBA icon Jerry West, whose lifelong pursuit of winning was paved in sacrifice and loss. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Kenya Barris in his documentary debut, Jerry West: The Logo will premiere exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.
Through dozens of never-before-told stories shared by friends, family members, teammates, and colleagues—including insights from former and current NBA stars Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O’Neal, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, and West’s own wife and several of his children—Jerry West: The Logo paints a complex portrait of a man driven by perfectionism.
The NBA has informed teams that it may launch a streaming hub for local broadcasts as soon as next season -- a year earlier than expected -- as a result of Main Street Sports Group’s impending demise in April, multiple sources told SBJ. While the exact format is still being ideated, those sources said the league is in talks with YouTube TV, DAZN, Amazon and ESPN and potentially others about housing local games for an aggregate of teams -- perhaps similar to an NFL Sunday Ticket -- depending on how many franchises opt in. Sources believe those streaming platforms would need the NBA to guarantee a certain threshold of teams before agreeing to any substantive deal, which industry insiders believe could be worth billions.
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As the NBA aggressively accelerates its expansion into the European market, plans are solidifying for a 16-team continental league launched with the strategic support of FIBA. According to recent reports from Sports Business Journal and other major media outlets, Amazon and YouTube have emerged as top candidates to secure global broadcasting rights for the venture. This new top-tier competition, widely referred to as NBA Europe, is currently targeting an inaugural tip-off in October 2027, perfectly aligned with the start of the 2027-28 season.
League executives have spent the past month meeting with dozens of potential investors in franchises in Europe, including wealthy individuals and private equity funds. Non-binding bids for those teams are due in late March. I’m told the NBA wants franchise fees of about $1 billion, though some investor groups have balked at that number and have pushed for fees closer to $500 million. It’s possible the NBA Board of Governors could greenlight the sale of franchises in some cities, and thus the formation of the league, during its upcoming March meeting. The NBA has targeted October 2027 for the league’s debut. The NBA has held conversations with several media companies with global aspirations to broadcast the games, including Amazon and YouTube, according to sources familiar with the matter. Amazon and YouTube spokespeople declined to comment. No decision on a broadcast partner or partners has been made yet, according to an NBA spokesperson.
John Ourand of Puck reported Thursday that the NBA hopes to bundle a package of local rights to sell as soon as next season and has already begun talks with streamers, including Amazon, ESPN, Google, Apple and DAZN. It had already been reported by Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal last summer that the NBA planned to centralize at least some portion of its local media rights by the 2027-28 season, but the timeline would seem to have been accelerated by the imminent collapse of Main Street Sports Group, operator of the FanDuel Sports Network RSNs. Friend and Mike Mazzeo noted in December that the Main Street situation had created “urgency” for the NBA to launch a centralized option in time for next season.
The NBA’s 11-year, $76B media rights agreements with Amazon, NBC and ESPN kicked off this season, and those deals have enabled MSG Sports to largely offset significant RSN revenue declines for its two teams. MSG Sports, the parent company of the Knicks and Rangers, disclosed in its latest earnings report a $18.6M bump in league distributions during fiscal Q2 (the final three months of 2025). That increase, primarily from the NBA’s new media deals, mostly made up for a $21.9M decline in local media rights from the teams’ recently revised agreement with local broadcaster MSG Networks, under which the Knicks and Rangers saw 28% and 18% reductions in annual rights fees, respectively. The revised agreement also eliminated contractual rights fee escalators.