DAZN will stream all non-national broadcasts for the Knicks and Nets during the 2026/27 season, according to Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, who writes that the sports streaming service is becoming the “exclusive digital home” of the MSG and YES networks.
Sources tell Karp that DAZN is also expected to acquire exclusive local broadcast rights in ’26/27 for at least five other teams: the Timberwolves, Cavaliers, Pacers, Spurs, and Grizzlies.
Additionally, DAZN is in talks with the Magic and Hornets. Those clubs could take what Karp refers to as a “hybrid linear-digital approach” to their game broadcasts for the coming season, reaching a local TV deal with an over-the-air partner while teaming up with DAZN for direct to consumer broadcasts.
According to Karp, DAZN may also come to an agreement on a non-exclusive streaming deal with another NBA team – believed to be the Wizards – in the near future.
With the exception of the Knicks, Nets, and Wizards, the teams being linked to DAZN are among the 13 clubs who had previously partnered with Main Street Sports Group (previously known as Diamond Sports Group) for their local broadcasts. Main Street, which ran the FanDuel Sports Network, went out of business earlier this year and will no longer broadcast games going forward, prompting the NBA to tell those 13 teams to seek new regional deals for the 2026/27 season.
The league’s eventual goal is to create its own streaming hub for local broadcasts. The NBA let teams know earlier this year there was a chance that hub could be set up for the start of the 2026/27 season, but the league is now targeting the ’27/28 season, so most of the clubs negotiating with DAZN are seeking either one-year deals or opt-out clauses after the first year, Karp notes.
DAZN is open to those sorts of short-term arrangements and is hoping to show over the course of the 2026/27 season that the streaming service should receive serious consideration to be the NBA’s partner on that regional streaming hub when it launches, Karp writes.
“We love the idea of aggregating local rights on a national level,” DAZN’s billionaire owner Len Blavatnik told The Sports Business Journal. “… This plays to our core, actually. There’s the old commercial disclaimers around it; it needs to make sense commercially, et cetera. But definitely. It makes no sense for us not to do it. We have to do it because this is just the beginning of the strategy, actually.”
According to Karp, sources believe the NBA will be seeking roughly $1 billion annually from its partner on that digital platform beginning in 2027/28. The plan would be to stream geo-fenced broadcasts for at least 20 teams and perhaps as many as 29, Karp adds.
Amazon, YouTube TV and the ESPN app are among the other potential contenders to team up with the NBA on that streaming service.
