DAZN Takes Steps Toward Being NBA’s Local TV Hub

The NBA doesn’t have a local TV hub just yet. But that hasn’t stopped DAZN from trying to play the part of one for this season.

Over the course of the offseason, the sports-focused streamer has strengthened its eventual play to house the NBA’s local rights as the regional sports network structure continues to erode.

While talks have honed in on a billion-dollar price tag and YouTube playing favorite to land the deal, DAZN has been vying to enter the ring as well.

The London-based service has acquired the local rights to over a third of the NBA in some way, shape or form for the 2026-27 season. DAZN will be the exclusive home of non-national games for the Indiana Pacers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves and San Antonio Spurs. Additionally, Brooklyn Nets, Charlotte Hornets, Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks, Orlando Magic and Washington Wizards games are also included — in a non-exclusive capacity.

This shouldn’t be confused with the NBA’s existing NBA League Pass subscription model, which gives fans access to all out-of-market games for a similar price as DAZN is offering ($119.99 for the season). So fans in these markets will only be getting their local teams with DAZN, and would need League Pass on top of that — plus Peacock, ESPN and Amazon Prime subscriptions — to see every game during the season.

But in lieu of free, over-the-air local broadcast options (which do exist in some of these markets), DAZN has quickly emerged as the go-to streaming option to subscribe to.

The bigger questions, then become: How many teams can DAZN or any other partner launch with once named the official hub? And does the league truly need a local hub when multiple markets won’t be included initially, and having local games on on different services in different markets don’t really impact one another?

As always, consolidating revenues into one (NBA-controlled) space is a big part of why this is being pushed.

Because even if a local hub can only launch with 20-25 teams (and would not include the Toronto Raptors given its own Canadian media agreements), that’s still controlled revenues for the participating franchises that take that worry off the NBA’s plate. And given the ongoing issues there in recent years, that would be a relief for the league.

Better still for the league, and whatever partner it works with (DAZN/YouTube), housing everything in one place provides an opportunity to connect national advertisers with local markets and enhance everyone’s ability to target specific viewers.

DAZN has had addressable ads since late 2020, via a partnership with Google. And also has dynamic ad insertion, which could be utilized to further enhance the value of these local NBA games.

This may all be putting the cart before the horse, though. DAZN’s larger local NBA footprint hasn’t even launched yet this season, and we’ll see what adoption looks like among fans in these markets. But the groundwork’s there for DAZN to make itself a bigger U.S. sports player, starting with this “trial run” around local NBA games this year.