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"I am dying to know how Amazon year one went on the media side. Did you love it? Are you like, I am in this for a long time? How was the media side full-time?" Dirk Nowitzki: "It was hard at the beginning. I've been out obviously seven years out of the league, and so at the beginning, it was just trying to catch up. The players have turned over, the front offices, the coaching, and the style is all different. I played catch-up there for the first couple of weeks. I wanted to know all the teams that were on, so I was watching a lot of hoops and going back the next day and trying to analyze. I was freaking myself out a little bit there in the first couple of weeks."
Longtime NBA content exec GREGG WINIK, who was the league’s producer behind efforts like “The Last Dance” and “Inside Stuff,” has announced he will be stepping down after the 2026-27 season after more than 35 years of association with the league. The NBA is beginning the search process now for his successor, and the Emmy-winning Winik will continue in his role this season and assist with that effort and transition. Winik, who is currently President/Content & Executive Producer, is in his second stint with the NBA after rejoining in 2022. In his role, Winik has worked under NBA Global Media Distribution President BILL KOENIG to help the league (and the WNBA) transition to new media deals with ESPN, NBC and Amazon. He also has worked to reimagine NBA TV and other league content within the NBA app after the transition away from TNT Sports operating that sector of the business for almost two decades.
Blake Griffin used to bully rim protectors inside the paint. Now he’s going to fire shots from the outside. The former Clipper and Pistons All-Star is launching a weekly late-night show on Prime Video and YouTube produced with Amazon’s Wondery. Titled The Stepback with Blake Griffin, it features the host sitting behind a desk chronicling and opining on the juiciest sports topics of our time — think John Oliver, but for all things athletic.
The NBA media rights deal 2.0 is all about local broadcasts and the cha-ching that could come with it. Sources tell SBJ that the NBA and YouTube remain in advanced talks about a 2027-28 aggregated hub for 20 to 25 teams -- and eventually 29 of the league’s 30 clubs -- for a potential price tag north of $1B. Some in the industry expect either a deal or stalemate by possibly this fall -- the latter of which could open the door for DAZN, ESPN or Amazon. But as of now, sources contend YouTube (whose head of sports and live partnerships Jen Chun spent nine years at the league office) is the favorite to acquire the moving target that is local NBA TV.
James’s Sixers are expected to get the maximum 34 national game telecasts/streams across Disney’s ABC/ESPN, NBCUniversal’s NBC Sports/Peacock, and Amazon’s Prime Video during the upcoming NBA season, say sources. That would more than double the 14 national games that Joel Embiid’s team was featured in during the 2025-6 campaign.
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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.