The second-order effects of the NBA’s new 11-year, $76 billion media deals are coming into focus. And in a welcome piece of news for the league’s three media partners — ESPN, NBC, and Prime Video — NBA ad sales were through the roof in Year 1 of the new deals.
According to [a report by Anthony Crupi in Sportico](https://www.sportico.com/business/media/2026/nba-ad-sales-media-rights-deal-tv-1234942133/), NBA in-game ad revenue shot up by $580 million compared to the prior season, totaling $2.11 billion in 2025-26 compared to $1.53 billion the season before. That’s good for a 38 percent year-over-year increase.
Unsurprisingly, the engine that fueled the staggering growth was transitioning more national inventory off of cable and onto broadcast television. Last season, 62 regular-season NBA games aired on broadcast television, up from just 24 such telecasts the year prior. NBC carried 39 games over-the-air, while ABC showed 23. The NBA will [again expand its broadcast output](https://awfulannouncing.com/nba/2026-national-tv-schedule-abc-espn-nbc-prime.html) this upcoming season, with 71 games scheduled for either NBC or ABC.
Of course, it’s not just additional broadcast windows helping the NBA’s gross ad revenue, the league simply had a larger number of national window games period. In 2024-25, the NBA had just 172 games in national windows. Last season, that number grew to 247.
Broadcast exposure led to one of the NBA’s best viewership seasons in recent memory, with the league’s regular-season audience averaging 1.78 million viewers across its three partners last season, up 16 percent versus the prior season under the old deals.
Much of the ad revenue growth came from the addition of wide-reach regular-season games. Per Crupi, the NBA’s three partners sold $870 million in ads during the regular-season, up 74 percent versus the 2024-25 season ($500 million). Postseason ad sales grew too, but at a slower rate since much of the playoffs, including the NBA Finals, already aired on broadcast television under the previous arrangements. Still, postseason ads generated $988 million, up 27 percent from the year prior. It’s worth mentioning that national postseason inventory, like national regular-season inventory, increased from prior seasons as first-round games moved off regional sports networks and NBA TV.
One interesting anecdote from the report is how well this season’s NBA Finals sold despite going only five games. The New York Knicks’ first title since 1973 led ESPN to sell $256 million in advertising over the five-game series, which is just $1.4 million less than the ad revenue generated from the seven-game Pacers-Thunder series in 2025. Had Knicks-Spurs gone the distance, there’s no telling how much more ad revenue ESPN could’ve made.
Those two games could’ve been all the difference for ESPN. Despite aggregate ad sales across the NBA’s broadcast partners increasing by 38 percent, ESPN actually generated $47.6 million less than it did under the prior arrangement, a consequence of splitting NBA inventory among three national partners instead of two.
Nevertheless, the NBA’s broadcast partners have to be thrilled with realizing some of the untapped value in advertising against the league’s programming. However, Year 2 of the new deals will be a better apples-to-apples comparison on the true trends in NBA advertising.