Prime Video Will Livestream Up to 87 NBA Games in Brazil This Season
The NBA may still be waiting for its streaming breakthrough in the U.S., but Brazilian basketball fans will soon have a new way to watch their favorite teams. Prime Video announced on Monday that it will stream up to 87 live NBA games this year to customers in the country.
The service will stream up to four exclusive NBA games each week on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the 2022-23 regular season. Prime Video’s slate will also include up to 24 playoff games and a wide range of original NBA content throughout the season, including pre and post-game shows; weekly programs featuring highlights, analysis, and news; classic games; and other programming hosted by local celebrities and influencers.
All of the streaming games will feature live commentary in Portuguese from local announcers and on-air talent and all of the games and programming will be available as part of a Prime Video subscription in Brazil.
“We are incredibly excited to expand our relationship with the NBA and give Brazilian basketball fans access to live NBA games and other exciting NBA content,” Amazon Global Sports Video Vice President Marie Donoghue said. “This NBA content will bolster our already substantial global slate of sports content available on Prime Video.”
That slate currently includes exclusive rights to the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football,” which has been a ratings bonanza for the platform through six weeks of the season. Amazon has been increasing Prime Video’s global sports footprint, which currently includes Ligue 1 and Roland-Garros in France, Premier League football in the U.K., ATP and WTA Tour tennis and Autumn Nations Series rugby in the U.K. and Ireland, UEFA Champions League football in Germany and Italy, the WNBA in addition to “TNF” in the U.S., New Zealand Cricket in India and more.
“We are thrilled to work with Prime Video and build on our longstanding commitment of delivering NBA games and content to fans in Brazil on the devices and platforms they use most,” said NBA Latin America Global Media Distribution Vice President Rafael Elia. “We are always looking for innovative ways to diversify our distribution and provide fans with more best-in-class options to experience the excitement of the NBA.”
The announcement may lead some customers to wonder if a deal between Prime Video and the NBA is forthcoming in the U.S. The NBA already offers an out-of-market streaming package in the U.S. called NBA League Pass, which announced a dramatic price reduction for the 2022-23 season. But an all-streaming NBA is unlikely to arrive any time soon.
The most likely scenario for the NBA is probably one similar to that of the NFL. That is for the NBA to re-up with its current broadcast partners — led by ABC/ESPN and TNT — for much more money than the current numbers, and with more games streamed via a partner like Amazon or HBO Max, the sister streamer to Warner Bros. Discovery’s Turner Networks.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Amazon Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.