How to Watch NBA Games on TV and Streaming

Finding an NBA game on national TV is fairly simple. Following one team all season takes more planning, because its games can land in three different places.

National games air on ABC and ESPN, NBC and Peacock, or Prime Video. Local games air on each team's own TV partner in its home market. NBA League Pass carries the out-of-market games that aren't on national TV. Where a game airs depends on the day of the week and where you live.

For tonight's games and channels, see our NBA TV & streaming schedule.

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This season

• Regular season: Oct. 20, 2026 to April 11, 2027.
• National partners: Disney (ABC/ESPN, 80 regular-season games), NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock/NBCSN, 100 games) and Amazon (Prime Video, 66 games), per NBA.com.
• Big dates: five Christmas Day games on ABC/ESPN; the NBA Cup knockout rounds and Dec. 11 final on Prime Video; Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Presidents' Day quadrupleheaders on NBC/Peacock; All-Star 2027 in Phoenix on NBC/Peacock.
• Postseason: Prime Video has all six Play-In games and the Eastern Conference Finals, ESPN/ABC the Western Conference Finals, and the NBA Finals air on ABC.

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Where NBA games air: national, local and out-of-market

This season is the second of the NBA's 11-year national media agreements with Disney (ABC/ESPN), NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock) and Amazon (Prime Video). Because the national package is divided between three companies, each with its own streaming service, no single service carries every national game.

Games that aren't picked for national TV stay with the teams, and each club arranges its own local coverage. That is why the answer for local games changes from team to team.

In practice, every game falls into one of three groups:

• National games air on one of the three national partners and are available across the US.
• Local games air in a team's home market on its local TV partner.
• Out-of-market games are everything else, and are available on NBA League Pass.

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Which network has which night

The three partners mostly own different nights. If you know which games you care about, this tells you which service you need. NBA.com describes the general pattern for national games this season as:

• Monday: Peacock and NBCSN
• Tuesday: NBC and Peacock (Coast 2 Coast Tuesday)
• Wednesday: ESPN
• Thursday: Prime Video (from midseason)
• Friday: Prime Video, plus ESPN (from midseason)
• Saturday: Prime Video in the afternoon (from midseason) and ABC at night
• Sunday: ABC in the afternoon and NBC/Peacock at night (from midseason)

The pattern shifts during opening week, holidays, the NBA Cup and the postseason. For any specific night, check which channel has each game on our schedule.

Every national game streams on one of three services: the ESPN app for ABC/ESPN games, Peacock for NBCUniversal games and Prime Video for Amazon games.

On Coast 2 Coast Tuesday, NBC stations in the Eastern and Central time zones show the 8 p.m. ET game, and stations in the Mountain and Pacific zones show the 8 p.m. PT game. Both stream nationally on Peacock.

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How to watch your local team

If you mostly follow one team, this is the section that matters most. Every team has at least two national TV appearances this season. Even so, the national schedule works out to only about 16 games per team, so most of a team's 82 games air locally.

Those games air in the team's home market on its local TV partner. That is usually a regional sports network, a local broadcast station or a team streaming service, and sometimes a combination. Who counts as "local" depends on your address, and a team's home territory can stretch across several states.

The table below lists every team's local TV partners. For a specific game, our NBA schedule lists the local channel next to the national and League Pass options, so you can see exactly where your team's next game airs.

The Atlanta Hawks are the first NBA team to stream their local games on Prime Video. Fans in the Hawks' five-state territory can watch them with a Prime membership, with no extra subscription.

Each team name in the table links to that team's schedule page, which shows the exact channel for every game.

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Watching out-of-market games with League Pass

If you follow a team from another part of the country, League Pass is the product built for you. It streams games that are not on national TV and not in your local market. You can get it through the NBA app and NBA.com, through Prime Video Channels, or through some TV providers.

Plans on NBA.com (checked Oct. 20, 2026):

• League Pass: $16.99 a month or $109.99 a season.
• League Pass Premium: $24.99 a month or $159.99 a season. Adds three devices, in-arena streams instead of commercials, and downloads.
• Team Pass: $13.99 a month, for one team's out-of-market games.

All three include NBA TV.

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How to watch NBA TV

NBA TV is the league's own channel. It is included with every NBA League Pass plan, and some cable, satellite and live TV packages carry it, so check your provider's channel lineup. Hulu + Live TV, for example, does not list NBA TV. NBA TV's national game schedule hasn't been fully announced yet. Our NBA schedule lists NBA TV for the games it carries.

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Watching without cable

Without cable, you build your setup one partner at a time, because each national partner streams its own games. If you want the big national games, start with the nights you watch most. Each service below covers one partner's games:

• ABC and ESPN games: ESPN Unlimited ($31.99 a month) streams ESPN's networks in the ESPN app. Some live TV services include ESPN access too: Hulu + Live TV includes ESPN Unlimited in the ESPN app.
• NBCUniversal games: Peacock Premium ($12.99 a month) streams every NBC, Peacock and NBCSN game.
• Amazon games: Amazon Prime ($14.99 a month) or standalone Prime Video ($8.99 a month).
• Live TV services: Hulu + Live TV lists ABC, ESPN and NBC (local channels depend on your ZIP code). No live TV service includes Prime Video games. Peacock's Monday games also air on NBCSN, so on a live TV service you only get them if it carries NBCSN. YouTube TV's Sports Plan, for example, lists NBC Sports Network. Otherwise, watch them on Peacock.

Which service or bundle fits you best is a separate question. To compare NBA streaming services by channels and price, see our comparison.

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Watching with an antenna

If you want the big national games without a subscription, an antenna is the place to start. It gets you the national games on ABC and NBC through your local stations. That includes ABC's Saturday night and Sunday afternoon games, NBC's Tuesday and Sunday night games, and the NBA Finals. It does not get you games on ESPN, Peacock-only games or Prime Video games.

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Spanish-language broadcasts

Telemundo presents 10 Sunday Night Basketball games and the NBA All-Star Game in Spanish, according to NBC Sports.

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Big events

The biggest dates don't follow the weekly pattern. Most of them belong to one partner from start to finish: Prime Video's NBA Cup knockout rounds and Play-In, for example, or the Finals on ABC.

The early playoff rounds are the exception. They are shared between partners. If you want every big event, expect to need all three services at some point in the season. The This season block above lists who has what.

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What we found

Which setup makes sense depends on what you watch. If you mostly follow one team, start with its local partner and add League Pass only if you live outside its market. If you want the big national games, an antenna and the three national services are your building blocks. The numbers below are based on the facts and prices above, checked Oct. 20, 2026:

• Peacock has the most national games of any single service. It streams all 100 of NBCUniversal's regular-season games, compared with 80 ABC/ESPN games in the ESPN app and 66 on Prime Video. No single service has them all.
• Streaming all national games costs $53.97 a month at today's prices: ESPN Unlimited ($31.99), Peacock Premium ($12.99) and Prime Video ($8.99).
• An antenna covers the ABC and NBC broadcasts at no monthly cost, including the Finals.
• League Pass covers your out-of-market team, not national games. A fan following one out-of-market team needs Team Pass ($13.99) plus the national services for that team's national games.
• Local fans need their team's TV partner. No national service or League Pass replaces it.

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