[OC] The state of every NBA team’s local broadcasting rights
I saw post on here yesterday about the Hawk’s moving their games to a local antenna broadcast which inspired me to dive deeper into this. I don’t watch every NBA team in their local market obviously so some of this may be inaccurate and deals that seem good or okay may actually be worse. I did all this research while bored at work and may have made some mistakes when looking over things, but I did do this myself and not with AI so those mistakes are of the human variety. I also did not factor in bundled extra teams with some of these platforms and am just putting in the perspective of someone who would just want the cheapest and easiest way to watch their local NBA team.
Antenna TV in your local market is free, high quality, and probably how most fans would prefer to watch. A streaming platform is a nice option for super committed fans who may want to watch on the go or on any assortment of devices that don’t play well with an antenna. Heat takes the cake for their local TV network streaming app carrying all games for free.
The gold standard and what every team should do considering how monetized every possible inch of the NBA is. These games are free to anyone within range and with a TV antenna.
While offering every single non-national TV game for free is preferred these teams at least gave fans a few games for free before putting the rest behind a paywalled streaming service.
FDSN, or FanDuel SportsNet, is something you are going to see a lot of here and in the next tier. They were a RSN that operated a large number of cable stations and sold those regional stations through a standalone app. They went bankrupt earlier this year and while they managed to finish out the season every team on FDSN last year will need to find a new home for 2026-2027 source. As of writing only a handful of teams (Pistons, Bucks, Hawks) have announced their new plans. For completeness I put their old FDSN deals on this list but these are all subject to change.
All three of these are $19.99/month
Like the above but with no free games. All are $19.99 a month
The Knicks are \(9.99 a month more than every other team which knocks them down a half tier. Sportsnet.ca+ for the Raptors converts to \)21.39 USD/month which isn’t too bad… except you only get 41 games, noticeably less than every other NBA team. This is because games on Canadian National TV (TSN) aren’t included which makes up about half the season’s games. So in $ per game its a pretty poor value.
NBC Sports RSN is available through cable or as an add on for peacock, which is a much cheaper option although still a lot more than standalone. Peacock + the NBC Sports add on for your region costs $35/month
Let me know what I got wrong here and I’ll try and update it.
EDITS: Formatting fixes, Blazers pricing fixed, OKC and Cavs moved up a tier for having some OTA games. Removed F-tier as the Rockets do have their own platform it was just really hard to find. Moved raptors and Knicks to C- tier. Fixed Nets pricing. Fixed Mavs Pricing. Moved Hornets and T wolves up a tier.