In today’s age of sports, it is pretty rare for media rights to change hands. The streaming era has allowed for big tech companies like Amazon and Netflix to encroach on traditional broadcast territory, particularly in the NFL, but for the most part live sports are such a valuable commodity that media companies are absolutely loath to give up even an inch of their territory. That has certainly been true in the NBA. ESPN and TNT have enjoyed exclusive broadcasting rights for the league over the first two and a half decades of the 21st century.
But that changed in the latest NBA media rights deal. ESPN is still in, but TNT is out after nearly 40 years, replaced by a conglomeration of NBC and Prime Video.
