{"id":409430,"date":"2026-01-15T20:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409430\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T20:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:18:07","slug":"amazons-global-nba-streams-might-be-its-most-ambitious-delivery-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409430\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon\u2019s Global NBA Streams Might Be Its Most Ambitious Delivery Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAmazon Prime Video<\/a> will stream the NBA<\/a>\u2019s first regular season game in Berlin\u2014the Memphis Grizzlies against the Orlando Magic\u2014on Thursday, with German legend and analyst Dirk Nowitzki playing a starring role. The Prime team then travels to London for a second European tilt featuring those teams Sunday.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut that pair of games is just a small piece of the world-spanning partnership between Amazon and the NBA. Beyond the U.S., Prime Video is carrying games in more than 220 countries and territories as part of its 11-year, $19.8 billion rights deal. That meant taking on a herculean technological challenge\u2014and seizing a chance to highlight all the tech giant can offer U.S. leagues looking to grow internationally.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmazon is now streaming<\/a> its games in 14 languages, each with its own set of announcers working from studios in their home countries, on top of intricate internet architecture to localize the presentations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLive video feeds are delivered to those announcers and then synced with their play-by-play calls. In-game graphics are tweaked. Commercial breaks come with different content by location. Streams are beamed through a production center in London for encoding and quality control before being sent to myriad devices in far-reaching locales. When all of that is done, producers oversee the handoff of the 14 announcing teams to a new set of speakers for a second game in most cases. Occasionally (like Thursday) there\u2019s a third tilt too. Oh, and much of this is playing out in the wee hours of the morning local time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s the most complicated dang thing we\u2019ve ever done,\u201d Prime Video Sports director of production and tech operations Ken Miller said. He added that the entire system might not be possible were it not for remote production and coordination technology advances made during the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the effort is paying off.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe league said that European viewership for NBA games on Prime Video is up 184% through Jan. 2 of this year, versus comparable games on linear TV last season. In Germany, the audience has grown 246% over a similar number of 2024-25 games on DAZN. In the U.K., there\u2019s been a 312% jump above last year\u2019s average viewership on TNT Sport UK through the same timeframe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHeading into negotiations for the current media deal, Amazon had regional rights to NBA games in certain parts of Latin America, as well as the ability to sell League Pass packages internationally.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was really clear that with our success with what we had been doing for a couple seasons \u2026 that it would expand beyond that in this new cycle,\u201d NBA SVP and head of international<\/a> content partnerships Matt Brabants said.<\/p>\n

\n\tCommissioner Adam Silver specifically called out how \u201cthe digital opportunities with Amazon align perfectly with the global interest in the NBA\u201d after the latest deal<\/a> got done.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe league has long had its eyes on growing its global reach in line with its international star-power. It\u2019s particularly focused on Europe right now, with plans for\u00a0a new league\u00a0<\/a>on the continent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tGlobal considerations were factored into all aspects of Amazon\u2019s NBA coverage, from including Nowitzki (who has been a stateside hit too) in Amazon\u2019s studio team to the streamer\u2019s schedule. It has eight Saturday afternoon games timed to air in prime time in Europe, often featuring international stars such as Victor Wembanyama and Giannis Antetokounmpo. It also has international rights to an additional 27 regular season games in select markets as well as postseason action. In total, the league scheduled 88 games to be played in European primetime (as well as key Middle Eastern and African markets) this season, including those airing on other networks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAmazon\u2019s first European prime time telecast, featuring Wemby, was the most-watched regular season game in Europe, excluding Christmas Day contests and games played in Paris, according to the NBA.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s so much focus on, obviously, the domestic side of what we were doing, but it\u2019s so much bigger and broader,\u201d Prime Video VP of global live production Jared Stacy said from Berlin.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith one partner spanning so many regions, the NBA gets more granular data on audiences around the world, while Amazon is taking its learnings into account as it builds its own permanent infrastructure for global sports productions. On Black Friday, Amazon streamed an NFL game globally for the first time. It has already delivered marquee hockey, soccer and tennis action in major international markets as well. Each new set of rights\u2014and capabilities\u2014makes the company even more attractive to leagues looking to reach viewers who have become accustomed to finding their favorite teams and athletes on Prime Video. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve done tier one sports in so many countries now,\u201d Stacy said. \u201cI think that\u2019s a great advantage for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amazon Prime Video will stream the NBA\u2019s first regular season game in Berlin\u2014the Memphis Grizzlies against the Orlando…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[4856,2091,355,99,7382],"class_list":{"0":"post-409430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-amazon-prime-video","9":"tag-international","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-streaming"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}