The NBA released its full 2026-27 schedule on Thursday after having announced some marquee matchups on Opening Day and Christmas earlier this week. And while there is much to discuss, including an expansion in the number of games airing on broadcast television, perhaps the biggest revelation from Thursday’s reveal was which conference final would land on Prime Video in the streamer’s first season broadcasting that round of the playoffs.
Prime Video announced it would broadcast the Eastern Conference finals this upcoming season, which was perhaps the more expected outcome, though far from a guarantee. As a reminder, NBC and Prime Video will rotate broadcast rights for one of the conference finals each of the first 10 seasons of the NBA’s new media rights deals. ESPN/ABC will get the other conference final in each of the first 10 seasons.
Under the old set of deals, ESPN and TNT would rotate which conference final they would air each season. For instance, if ESPN had the Eastern Conference finals one year, it would have the Western Conference finals the next. That pattern seems to be continuing in Year 2 of the new agreements, with ESPN having aired the Eastern Conference finals last season while being scheduled to air the Western Conference finals this upcoming season. That every-other-year cadence is why many presumed Prime Video would be awarded an Eastern Conference finals this season.
However, if that pattern were to hold, that would mean NBC would always air a Western Conference finals while Prime Video would always air an Eastern Conference finals.
That will not be the case, Awful Announcing has learned. Throughout the course of the NBA’s broadcast deals, the rotation will be shaken up and NBC will sometimes be awarded an Eastern Conference finals while Prime Video will sometimes be awarded a Western Conference finals. That means there will be years throughout the span of the NBA’s 11-year deals in which ESPN will broadcast the same conference final in consecutive years. NBC and Prime Video will each receive three Eastern and three Western Conference finals throughout the 11-year deals.
It is unclear when the NBA plans to implement a new cadence, but it won’t be this season.
Historically, there hasn’t been a huge difference in viewership between the two conference finals. Though the Western Conference has had an edge in eight of the last 10 seasons, the Eastern Conference has come out on top from a viewership perspective in two of the last four seasons as some of the league’s quality has shifted back eastward.
Viewership strength of a conference final typically comes down to team quality (i.e. star power, market, and prestige) and how long the series lasts. It’s difficult to predict which conference will perform better from that perspective in any given year.
But for NBC and Prime Video, they’ll have equal opportunity to broadcast both conferences throughout the terms of their deals.
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