It was yesterday that the beIN Sports teams organized the presentation of their 13th back-to-school season. A now traditional day where three letters were nevertheless missing…
Because if the Qatari channel highlighted its broadcasting of the American major leagues (NFL, MLB, NHL, NCAA), it could not talk about the NBA. Indeed, the contract between the Major League and beIN Sports is over, and the two camps are currently negotiating the broadcasting of the next season, which begins in a month and a half.
What Rémi Reverchon explained on X/Twitterconfirmed by Florent Houzot, the editorial director.
“This is a historic right of beIN and discussions are underway” explains the latter to L'Equipe. “The season starts again at the end of October, there is still time to hope to renew this right.”
The arrival of Amazon Prime in 2025…
We will note the cautious optimism, while the NBA has been one of the channel's key rights since 2012. This is because beIN Sports, which has claimed to be profitable for three years, is now in a reasoned acquisition policy. It is also because the arrival of Amazon Prime in 2025/26 is already shaking things up.
As a reminder, from 2025, the American giant's streaming service should be able to broadcast in France, as in the United States, 66 regular season matches, the Emirates NBA Cup, the entire “play-in” and a third of the series of the first and semi-finals of the conference playoffs. As a bonus, Prime Video would have obtained 20 additional regular season matches to broadcast on the French market, a conference final each year and the NBA Finals on 6 of the 11 years of the contract!
“It's a very small part of the NBA rights” tries to reassure Florent Houzot, by relying on the coverage of his teams for more than a decade. “A regular season is more than 1,200 matches and beIN Sports broadcasts more than 400 per season with a daily one (NBA Extra). That's 95% of the rights that remain to be sold for the NBA.”
