There has been no major professional sports commissioner as beleaguered as the NBA’s Adam Silver.
Tanking, flopping, ratings, rule changes, expansion, refereeing, gambling, player health, load management. The list of inquiries lobbed towards Silver and the NBA as a whole seems to have grown exponentially in the last couple of years. The NBA commissioner was once lauded as one of the most progressive commissioners in sports, but over the last year his leadership has faced its most severe questioning, with Bill Simmons even openly wondering whether he’s still the right man for the job.
But the one thing you cannot question Adam Silver about may be the most important single factor for the NBA’s short- and long-term success and viability. He nailed the NBA’s new television deals.
Revenue from national television deals has increasingly become a defining pillar for sports leagues, given the importance of television and soaring rights fees. In 2024, the NBA signed new 11-year deals worth $76 billion with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon.
And when it comes to the massive jump in revenue, the partners the NBA has chosen to work with, and how the Association has threaded the needle between making games more accessible and tapping into the streaming revolution, it’s been a massive success on all fronts.
From an elevated view, the NBA was very wise in spreading its content across broadcast, cable, and streaming. But while there was some early criticism that it was too difficult for fans to find games, the ratings tell a different story. Regular season viewership? Up. Postseason viewership? Up. Most watched conference finals series since 2002? Of course.
Sports leagues are caught in an unenviable position of having to choose between sacrificing big tech checks to send games behind streaming paywalls and continuing to lean into accessibility through over-the-air broadcast networks. It’s a dilemma the NFL is wrestling with regarding its upcoming television deals. How do you increase revenue and partner effectively with streamers while still making fans content with overall availability? Every sport is facing some variation of this debate, from motorsports to baseball to soccer.
It’s the defining Catch-22 of the modern age for sports leagues and media partners. Go too far in one direction and miss out on revenue in a time when the pressure to find new cash streams is more intense than ever. Go too far in the other and risk making your sport an afterthought in the wider sports and entertainment landscape. But give all credit in the world to Adam Silver and the NBA for seemingly finding just the right balance.
The NBA put more games on broadcast television than ever before during the regular season and postseason, thanks to the NBC portion of the deal. It wasn’t just the recent Western Conference Finals that drew record viewership; it was Hawks-Magic or Cavaliers-Spurs games during the regular season that consistently drew national broadcast network exposure.
The NBA being on network television every week certainly played a huge part in ratings going up. But that’s so important in today’s increasingly fragmented environment. And while it’s impossible to quantify, it’s hard not to think that the greatly increased exposure played a role in the major increases in playoff ratings. What better way to help build new stars in today’s league than by giving people the best opportunities to see them?
At the same time, though, the NBA was able to move coverage forward by partnering with Amazon Prime Video. The league benefited from new voices and new technology in covering the game as fans responded very well to the streamer’s first season with the league. And in what may be the best news of all, the league saw ratings hold strong on Amazon, perhaps the strongest endorsement of the new media deals.
But it’s not just the networks; it’s the editorial direction of the coverage as well. After ESPN drew plenty of criticism for last year’s NBA Finals coverage and the growing negativity surrounding the day-to-day coverage of the league, 2026 brought some much-needed new energy from the likes of NBC and Amazon. ESPN saved Inside the NBA through a licensing deal with TNT Sports, keeping the most beloved sports studio show of all time on the air. And the new Finals crew of Mike Breen, Tim Legler, and Richard Jefferson intentionally built their chemistry throughout the entire season after multiple years of change.
In a perfect world, yes, it would be great if Shaquille O’Neal knew who Baylor Scheierman was. But while NBC and Amazon made a point to be more uplifting in their coverage, fans certainly won’t complain when they see the Inside the NBA crew in place of Stephen A. Smith and company for the NBA Finals broadcasts.
Finally, there’s the incredible amount of money the NBA is making from these new rights deals. Do you know how difficult it is to make the NFL jealous? That’s what the NBA accomplished in striking these agreements with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon. Whatever doomsday scenario any critic wants to theorize about the league’s future, these billion-dollar media deals will cement the NBA’s status for the next generation. In a time of industry trepidation and broader economic uncertainty, Adam Silver and the NBA secured a 160% increase in national television rights fees. That did not happen by accident.
The NBA has many issues it needs to address to make the league a better place. And money won’t make all of their problems go away. But give Adam Silver and the NBA their due — these new media deals have been a resounding slam dunk.
This originally appeared in the Wednesday edition of The A Block, Awful Announcing’s daily newsletter with the latest sports media news, commentary, and analysis. Sign up here and be the first to know everything you need to know about the sports media world.
