The 2025–26 NBA schedule was unveiled last week, and the defending NBA Champion Oklahoma City Thunder will have 34 of their games featured on national television broadcasts.
Three other teams will also have 34 games on national television; the Knicks, Lakers and Warriors. All three are large market teams that made playoff runs last season.
There is a catch, however. You may or may not be able to watch many NBA games on television, depending on the cable or streaming services to which you subscribe.
According to the schedule as it is right now, there will be 247 national broadcast games during the upcoming season, that’s an increase of 75 over last year (a 43.6% increase). This will be the NBA’s first season of an 11-year, $77 billion media deal with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon Prime Video.
The national games total is made up of all games that air to all customers on either linear television (ABC, ESPN, NBC) or streaming services (Peacock, Amazon Prime Video, ESPN). The league said every national game will be available on at least one national streaming service.
The national broadcast schedule will include a “Sunday Night Basketball” game on NBC, much like the network broadcasts “Sunday Night Football” during the NFL season. Because of that, the first Sunday night NBA game will air on Feb. 1. This is what the schedule and network lineup will look like this season, but Sunday, Thursday and Saturday broadcasts won’t begin until after the NFL season gets into the playoffs.
- Sunday: ABC, NBC, Peacock
- Monday: Peacock
- Tuesday: NBC, Peacock
- Wednesday: ESPN
- Thursday: Amazon Prime Video
- Friday: Amazon Prime Video, ESPN
- Saturday: Amazon Prime Video, ABC
The Oklahoma City Thunder will be featured on the NBA’s opening night, Oct. 21, playing the Houston Rockets in the first game of a doubleheader at 6:30 p.m. on NBC and Peacock. The second game will be the Los Angeles Lakers hosting the Golden State Warriors.
The Thunder will play 10 Sunday home games, and only six on Friday nights. They will play their first game in the NBA Cup on Nov. 7 at Sacramento. Their next NBA Cup game will be at Utah on Nov. 21. The Thunder will host two NBA Cup games; Nov. 26 against Minnesota at 6:30 p.m. and Nov. 28 against Phoenix at 8:30 p.m.
Oklahoma City will be home against the San Antonio Spurs on Christmas Day (Dec. 25) at 1:30 p.m. That game will be broadcast on ABC. They will also play at home on New Year’s Eve against the Portland Trail Blazers at 7:00 p.m., and will close out the regular season at home against the Phoenix Suns, on April 12 at 7:30 p.m.
The NBA All-Star break and festivities will be February 13-18.
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