NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he was waiting for LeBron James to pick his next team so his league could formally set its schedule. Now that the 41-year-old James has signed with the 76ers, TV viewers should expect to see a lot of Philadelphia games this season.
James’s Sixers are expected to get the maximum 34 national game telecasts/streams across Disney’s ABC/ESPN, NBCUniversal’s NBC Sports/Peacock, and Amazon’s Prime Video during the upcoming NBA season, say sources. That would more than double the 14 national games that Joel Embiid’s team was featured in during the 2025-6 campaign. You can also expect to see the 76ers play a prominent role during tentpole events, like opening week and the league’s annual five-game slate on Christmas Day.
Under the NBA’s current 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal, each of the 30 teams gets at least two national game telecasts/streams per season. But every season, there’s a handful of winning clubs that get the maximum 34 national games because they boast the biggest stars in the biggest markets.
Last year, that elite group included the eventual NBA champion Knicks in the country’s biggest TV market; James’s Lakers in the second-biggest market; four-time champion Steph Curry’s Warriors; and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s Thunder, the defending champs. At the other end of the spectrum, the Wizards, Pelicans, Jazz, Raptors, and Nets were only penciled in for two national appearances last season.
