Having gone from two national broadcasting partners (ABC/ESPN and TNT) to three (ABC/ESPN, NBC, and Amazon Prime) ahead of the 2025/26 season, the NBA’s schedule will feature a significant increase in nationally televised games.
When the league unveiled its full regular season schedule on Thursday, it announced 237 nationally televised regular season matchups, along with the seven knockout round NBA Cup games whose participants aren’t yet known, for a total of 244 contests.
As Colin Salao of Front Office Sports writes in a subscriber story, the total number of nationally televised games is up by more than 40% from last season, when the league’s partners nationally broadcasted a total of 172 games.
Salao also points out that beginning in the middle of the season, when the NFL schedule starts winding down, the NBA will have national games every day of the week: Peacock on Monday; NBC/Peacock on Tuesday; ESPN on Wednesday; Amazon on Thursday; Amazon and ESPN on Friday; Amazon and ABC on Saturday; and ABC, NBC, and Peacock on Sunday.
Every team will be featured at least twice on the national TV broadcast schedule, with the Warriors, Lakers, Knicks, and defending champion Thunder leading the way with 34 appearances apiece.
Here’s the full breakdown of nationally televised games by team:
- Golden State Warriors: 34
- Los Angeles Lakers: 34
- New York Knicks: 34
- Oklahoma City Thunder: 34
- Houston Rockets: 28
- Minnesota Timberwolves: 28
- Denver Nuggets: 26
- Boston Celtics: 25
- Cleveland Cavaliers: 24
- Dallas Mavericks: 23
- San Antonio Spurs: 22
- Los Angeles Clippers: 21
- Milwaukee Bucks: 18
- Detroit Pistons: 16
- Orlando Magic: 14
- Philadelphia 76ers: 14
- Atlanta Hawks: 13
- Memphis Grizzlies: 10
- Indiana Pacers: 9
- Phoenix Suns: 9
- Sacramento Kings: 9
- Portland Trail Blazers: 8
- Miami Heat: 5
- Charlotte Hornets: 3
- Chicago Bulls: 3
- Brooklyn Nets: 2
- New Orleans Pelicans: 2
- Toronto Raptors: 2
- Utah Jazz: 2
- Washington Wizards: 2
Since nationally televised matchups are subject to change, there’s no guarantee that every team will ultimately end up being featured multiple times on the national stage.
As Salao points out, all 30 clubs showed up at least once on the national broadcast schedule initially announced for 2024/25, but the Wizards didn’t get any nationally televised games after having their lone contest replaced by a showdown between Cleveland and Oklahoma City.
Additionally, not every team this season will have a game aired on a traditional, non-streaming network — the only games featuring the Raptors or Wizards will air on either Peacock or Amazon Prime.
2 games for New Orleans. Zion hype is finally over? Last year they had 13.
23 games for Dallas? They are one AD injury (which is more likely to happen than not) from going down the Philly-San Antonio road and tank to get Flagg a buddy. They cannot afford to fumble their future with Flagg, they cannot afford to not compete and trade away AD and Kyrie.
He is usually injured so they are not going to depend on him being on the court and a selling point.
* But they can afford not to compete, tank for a high lottery pick in a deep 2026 class, and trade away AD, Kyrie and other players who have value. I very much expect them to do so.
There have already been indications that Kidd will not be an actual coach, but a guy to make Flagg feel comfortable and look good.
I wouldn’t consider Peacock and Prime as nationally televised since an app.
Well considering quite a few people cut their cable cords and subscribe to apps like YouTubeTV or Sling, then we shouldn’t consider any of the games as nationally televised since a big chunk of watchers are using an app.
Exactly what is wrong with the NBA they rather make schedules that is only good for the TV media while forcing teams to play back to back games to help out ratings.