MW Want to stream every NBA game this season? It's going to cost you nearly $1,000.

By Weston Blasi

2025-26 NBA games will air on several new streaming services this year, including Amazon Prime and Peacock

Watching all the NBA games this season could cost nearly $1,000. Here's how cord-cutters can catch the action.

The good news: For the first time ever, NBA fans will be able to stream every single game of an upcoming season. The bad news: It's going to cost nearly $1,000.

What's driving up the price? The 2025-26 basketball season is moving games over to a bunch of new streaming services. Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) TNT is no longer showing games, while Amazon (AMZN) and NBC (and its Peacock streaming service) will broadcast games instead. Because of this change, fans who have cut the cable cord are going to need to add more streaming subscriptions to their catalog of services to stay up to date with the NBA. And many of these streaming services have raised their prices over the past year.

Fans who want to watch every NBA game online this season - during both the regular season and the playoffs - will need to spend $939 across five streaming services and corresponding username-password combinations. And that's for the cheapest, ad-supported plans. More expensive subscriptions without ads are also available for League Pass, Prime and Peacock, but those plans would increase a customer's total NBA spending to more than $1,000 for the season.

Here's a breakdown of what's streaming where, and how much the cheapest version of each service costs:

The NBA in July signed a $76 billion TV deal with Disney $(DIS)$, NBC and Amazon, leaving TNT without NBA games for the first time since 1988. The Comcast-owned $(CMCSA)$ NBC secured an NBA broadcast package for the first time since 2002.

NBA fans who have cable can get access to NBC, ABC and ESPN, but they will miss out on Peacock-exclusive games, Amazon Prime-exclusive games, as well as out-of-market games. Local teams' games are sometimes available on cable, but that varies by area.

With NBA games airing on several different platforms this season, fans may find it confusing to navigate when and where to watch. For example, all games will be broadcast on ESPN and ABC, but fans can also get access to those games by subscribing directly to the new ESPN streaming app.

The same goes for NBCUniversal's NBA games, which will all appear on the NBC channel and the Peacock streaming service. There are some Peacock-exclusive games, like the Monday doubleheaders, but all NBC games will also stream on Peacock. This allows cord-cutters who also don't subscribe to a live TV streaming provider like YouTubeTV to get every NBA game without needing those services. Some 50 NBA games will stream exclusively on Peacock.

Amazon was added to the roster of NBA broadcast partners for the first time this season, deepening the company's partnership with sports leagues - which also include the NFL and MLB. Prime Video will feature Friday night doubleheaders, the Emirates NBA Cup and the NBA Play-In tournament.

Fans can get out-of-market games (games airing on local TV that are outside their geographical area) through an NBA League Pass subscription, but they will still be blocked from their local teams' games. For example, an NBA fan who lives in the New York City metropolitan area will be able to watch every broadcast of a Denver Nuggets game on local TV, but they won't be able to watch New York Knicks games due to blackout restrictions.

Therefore, they must see if there is an additional local TV streaming option for watching those local games. In the chart above, a New York-based fan would need to buy a Gotham Sports subscription to also watch Knicks games. This brings the total cost for an NBA fan streaming every game to nearly $1,000 for the season.

See: WNBA players want more money - and stars like Napheesa Collier and Caitlin Clark are calling out the league commissioner to get it

The NBA opted to have its games stream a la carte this season for the first time in the league's history. All games can be streamed, which is huge for NBA fans, who tend to skew younger than fans of other major sports.

"Gen Z is leading this," said Bob Mitchell, founder of Mitchell Partnership Alliances and adjunct professor at American University's Kogod School of Business. "This demo is digital-first. It's click culture, [it's] on demand, it's sharable. Broadcasters cannot look away from that."

'It's extremely expensive. For the casual sports fan, this is a huge issue.' Bob Mitchell, adjunct professor at American University's Kogod School of Business

But this kind of online-only sports viewing isn't cheap.

"It's extremely expensive," Mitchell told MarketWatch. "For the casual sports fan, this is a huge issue. Real diehard sports fans are going to pay that premium. It's sometimes cheaper to go to the game, which is so unfortunate."

The expenses don't stop there for the fans, either, as they'll need internet access to stream games.

MarketWatch's price calculation to stream NBA games this season doesn't include the cost of internet service. The average price U.S. consumers paid for unbundled wired internet was $83.35 per month in February, according to market-research firm J.D. Power.

Streaming companies need consumers to keep subscribing and paying money for their services, and they think professional-sports deals like exclusive NBA content can be one way to get there. But the streaming market is competitive - and high costs to acquire rights and consumer churn are top concerns - which means these companies need to offer more than just live sports, experts say. They need programming around the games, too.

"Add more value to the package in terms of bonus content. Pregame, postgame analysis, personalities, NBA experts - it's adding value for that diehard sports fan. It's more important if you're asking consumers to shell out even more money," Mitchell said.

While spending $939 and signing up for five streaming services just to watch basketball may seem like a lot, consider the plight of NFL fans. Football fans needed access to nine different streaming services last season, at a cost of $1,758, to watch every game. In a few years, the NBA could follow the NFL's model and keep adding streaming services to its offerings.

"The NBA has less destination viewing. An NFL game is special, a drama. For the NBA, they better hope it's not a highlight-based sport. They need people to buy this package," Mitchell said.

Some sports fans who spoke to MarketWatch before last football season said staying organized with all these services can be "very tedious," with one saying they use a spreadsheet to keep track of all their usernames and passwords.

While the cost can be high, there are ways to get discounts on some services that offer NBA games this season. ESPN's app will be $300 for the first year (with a final price to be determined); Amazon offers a young-adult Prime membership for $69 a year; League Pass is 40% off for students; and Gotham Sports lowered its annual price by $40 prior to the NBA season.

But fans who want to watch a game that is exclusive to one of the streaming platforms will be disappointed to learn that most streaming services no longer offer free trials, which means that simply starting a service without paying and then canceling it after the free period ends is a thing of the past.

Read on: LeBron James on why he won't take risks with his money: 'I can't start over. There's no way.'

-Weston Blasi

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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October 17, 2025 15:16 ET (19:16 GMT)

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