Amazon Prime, Duke strike deal to broadcast 3 basketball video games in 2026-27

Amazon is moving into school basketball, and its first accomplice is the largest crew model within the sport.

Prime Video introduced a multiyear partnership with Duke, together with a three-game deal for the upcoming 2026-27 school basketball season:

• Wednesday, Nov. 25: Duke vs. UConn in Las Vegas. A rematch of essentially the most memorable recreation of the 2025-26 season, UConn’s comeback win within the Elite Eight, the day earlier than Thanksgiving.

• Monday, Dec. 21: Duke vs. Michigan at Madison Square Garden. Michigan is the defending nationwide champion, and each groups will begin the season ranked within the prime 5.

• Saturday, Feb. 20: Duke vs. Gonzaga in Detroit. This would be the third straight 12 months that Duke performs in a high-profile nonconference recreation in February.

This will mark Amazon Prime Video’s preliminary entry into school sports activities, making the most of loopholes in established TV contracts that permit nonconference matchups at impartial websites exterior of the collaborating convention’s footprints to air on networks apart from these with convention offers.

Prime Video has been aggressively pursuing high-profile rights offers in professional sports activities, together with the NFL, NBA, the Masters, NASCAR, WNBA and NWSL.

As for Duke’s aspect, the Blue Devils had been already one of many highest income drivers in school basketball (No. 1 amongst groups within the 2026 Sweet 16), with a strong NIL funds and early-adopter front-office system led by GM Rachel Baker that has this system close to the highest of the recruiting and switch rankings this spring.

For a school basketball TV panorama dominated by ESPN, Fox Sports and CBS, the deal opens new pathways for nontraditional networks and streaming providers to carve out premium stock with groups desirous to drive new income streams to cowl rising NIL prices.

While Duke’s males’s basketball opponents within the ACC take discover, this could really feel acquainted to Notre Dame, which has used its impartial standing in school soccer to land a longstanding and profitable standalone partnership with NBC to air its dwelling video games.

What it means for Amazon

It just isn’t onerous to grasp Prime Video’s technique and the way it will proceed being a giant a part of sports activities followers’ lives. While the Duke deal is simply three video games, it’s a begin to what might be an enlargement into extra main school hoops over the following decade. The key phrase is “major.”

Prime Video is usually searching for programming on the prime. It already has the NFL, the NBA, the Masters, the Yankees in New York, the NHL in Canada and main soccer properties in Europe. Duke falls into that class in school hoops. It most likely didn’t harm that Charlie Neiman, the pinnacle of sports activities partnerships for Prime Video, was a water polo participant at Duke.

Amazon’s purpose is to make its subscription membership a must have for anybody with its “free shipping” and its top-flight sports activities. This deal provides to it. — Andrew Marchand

What it means for Duke

In an period the place blue blood standing has by no means meant much less, Duke beneath Jon Scheyer continues to be the exception — and this Amazon deal is simply the newest instance.

The Blue Devils already are one of many best-financed applications in school basketball, however Scheyer and his workers proceed to take steps to make sure they keep there. For starters, Duke — like many groups on this period — has moved away from collaborating in multi-team occasions (MTEs) within the nonconference, as a substitute preferring to play marquee, standalone video games. That’s each for aggressive causes and monetary causes. On the aggressive entrance, Duke has dominated the ACC so totally the final two seasons — sweeping the league’s regular-season and event titles — that Scheyer and his workers want to make sure they nonetheless have high quality, needle-moving video games on the schedule. That’s a big purpose Duke performed Michigan in February of this season, and Illinois in February of 2024-25. (Scheyer has additionally proven a desire for late-season nonconference video games to arrange for the tempo and scouting schedule within the NCAA Tournament.)

Financially, although, these kinds of nonconference video games are additionally crucial within the NIL and revenue-sharing period, the place each greenback issues. As The Athletic reported in November, heading into Players Era Festival, one of the best school basketball groups usually attempt to chase at the least a typical dwelling gate — roughly $500,000 to $1 million — when taking part in in these neutral-site contests. Duke’s model definitely helps to that impact, however it’s tough to consider Amazon isn’t paying prime greenback to broadcast one of many prime manufacturers within the sport.

Getting UConn, Michigan and Gonzaga — three of school basketball’s elites, together with half of this season’s Final Four — concerned solely makes it extra seemingly that this can be a profitable affair for Duke. — Brendan Marks