NBA League Pass is the
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
's direct-to-consumer subscription-based product that gives basketball fans access to NBA games, live and on-demand, for the entire NBA season. League Pass is available to viewers in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and as an international package for all other countries. The pricing structure and services on offer are different, depending on where the viewer is located. A 7 day free trial is available for new subscribers everywhere.
United States League Pass
NBA League Pass is an
out-of-market sports package
In North America, an out-of-market sports package is a form of subscription television that broadcasts sporting events to areas where the events were unable to be seen by viewers on other broadcast and cable television networks due to the games no ...
that allows its subscribers to watch up to 40 out-of-market
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
games a week. Videos of the games come from local stations and
regional sports networks
In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...
.
Nba League Pass is available on the web, iOS, Android, Android TV, Apple TV, Xbox One and Xbox Series X (select countries), Roku (select countries), Playstation 5 (select countries), Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV and Fire Stick, Comcast Xfinity Flex Platform, CarPlay, and Apple Watch.
Customers outside the United States can sign up for NBA International League Pass.
Your NBA League Pass subscription includes:
*Live and on-demand games
*Restricted locations apply. For fans accessing from the US and Canada, all games that are not restricted by US and Canadian Blackouts will be available for viewing
*Access to NBA TV’s 24-hour stream and show archives with exclusive features, interviews, press conferences, and live events. See here for country restrictions
*Access to full game archives starting from the 2012-2013 season to the present
*Every feed - Home, Away, Mobile View, plus additional languages and camera angles
Blackout restrictions
If a local team is playing and the game is televised in the home market, the associated feed on League Pass is blacked out and unavailable for viewing.
Per the NBA.com website:
“Games will also be blacked out when they are appearing on national television. This applies to games being televised on
ABC,
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
,
TNT
Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...
and
NBA TV
NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regula ...
. You may view these games simply by switching to the designated channel.”
In Canada, Bulls games on
WGN-TV are not blacked out.
NBA League Pass availability in the US
NBA League Pass TV is available with these cable, satellite and streaming providers in the United States:
* ''United States'':
**
AT&T U-verse
U-verse TV is a DirecTV brand of IPTV service. Launched on June 26, 2006, U-verse included broadband Internet (now AT&T Internet or AT&T Fiber), IP telephone (now AT&T Phone), and IPTV (U-verse TV) services in 48 states.[DIRECTV
DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...]
**
Dish Network
**
fuboTV
FuboTV Inc. (stylized as fuboTV) is an American streaming television service serving customers in the United States, Canada, and Spain that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports. Depending on country, channels offered by Fub ...
**
iN DEMAND Team
***
Adams Cable
***
Blue Ridge Communications
***
Altice
***
Comcast (
Xfinity
Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications company and division of Comcast Corporation used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the c ...
)
***
Cox Communications
***
Frontier Communications
Frontier Communications Parent, Inc. (known as Citizens Utilities Company until May 2000 and Citizens Communications Company until July 31, 2008) is an American telecommunications company. The company previously served primarily rural areas and s ...
***
RCN
***
Charter Communications
Charter Communications, Inc., is an American telecommunications and mass media company with services branded as Spectrum. With over 32 million customers in 41 states, it is the second-largest cable operator in the United States by subscribe ...
(
Spectrum
A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors ...
)
***
Verizon FiOS
**
Sling TV
Sling TV is an American streaming television service operated by Sling TV LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dish Network. Unveiled on January 5, 2015, at the Consumer Electronics Show, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor aim ...
**
YouTube TV
YouTube TV is an American streaming television service operated by YouTube, a wholly owned subsidiary of Google. Announced on February 28, 2017, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor offers a selection of live linear channel f ...
** B/R Live
**
Yahoo Sports
Yahoo! Sports is a sports news website launched by Yahoo! on December 8, 1997. It receives a majority of its information from STATS, Inc. It employs numerous writers, and has team pages for teams in almost every North American major sport. B ...
(Only on mobile and tablet devices)
Most providers who offer subscriptions to League Pass TV also include
NBA TV
NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regula ...
and a companion League Pass Broadband subscription. It is also included in some cable subscriptions.
NBA International League Pass
NBA International League Pass is available to users living outside the United States, and differs from the US version of the product in its content, packaging, and pricing. While both the US and international products feature games available for live or on-demand viewing, the major distinction between the two products is that International League Pass provides access to all NBA games played during the regular season, All Star Weekend, Playoffs, and Finals, free from blackout restrictions. The single exception to this offering is in Canada, where games televised nationally are blacked out live and are available for on-demand viewing only after the game is completed. International League Pass also provides access to games from previous seasons through archives.
International users have the option of subscribing to several package options, varying by region: NBA League Pass, League Pass Premium, Team Choice, Game Choice, and 3-Game Choice. Subscribers to all packages are able to watch NBA games from Summer League, preseason, regular season, All Star Weekend, Playoffs, and Finals live or on-demand from a variety of devices, including desktop computers, iPhones, iPads, Android phones and tablets, and TV-connected devices like Apple TV, Android TV, Google Chromecast, Xbox and PlayStation consoles (the platforms supported differ by country). Subscribers are also able to use in-game features including multi-game viewing, stats windows, and a condensed game feature that only includes scoring and highlight plays. Additional features, such as access to NBA TV and multi-device streaming, vary by subscription.
Beginning in the 2014-15 season, NBA International League Pass introduced continuous game feeds for selected games and all home feeds, which replaced the game break videos (highlights, commercials, etc.) shown during play breaks with highlight clips, live footage of in-arena activities including dance team performances, half-time entertainment, fans in the crowd, and interviews or features produced by the local broadcaster.
International Packages and Promotions
In addition to the standard and Premium packages, users also have the option to purchase a stand-alone streaming subscription to NBA TV International, which broadcasts games, studio shows, press conferences, and other basketball content. In past seasons, International League Pass has also offered sampling packages that provide stand-alone access to Christmas Day games and All Star Weekend events. The last several weeks of the regular season have also been made available in a separate "Race to the Playoffs" package.
During the off-season, both International League Pass and International League Pass Premium subscribers have live and on-demand access to Summer League games and certain games or scrimmages played by the USA Basketball team in preparation for or during the
Olympics and the
FIBA World Cup tournament, in addition to continued access to past NBA regular seasons in archives. This summer content has also been sold as a stand-alone package.
International League Pass offers a rolling free trial of the product throughout the season, allowing first time users to preview the League Pass experience before purchasing.
NBA League Pass availability outside the US
Note: Subscriptions can be bought in most regions via the Internet to be streamed to applications on various devices or to a browser (see above for list). Some of the following services include League Pass, either fully or partially, but they are not required to view League Pass.
*''Brazil''
**
Vivo TV
Vivo TV is a Brazilian pay television provider, owned by the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica, through its subsidiary in the country, Vivo. It provides digital cable, satellite and IPTV services.
Grupo Abril's TVA was founded in 19 ...
* ''Canada'':
**
Bell Satellite TV
Bell Satellite TV (french: Bell Télé; formerly known as Bell ExpressVu, Dish Network Canada and ExpressVu Dish Network and not to be confused with Bell's IPTV Fibe TV service) is the division of BCE Inc. that provides satellite television ser ...
**
Shaw Direct
Shaw Direct is a direct broadcast satellite television distributor in Canada and a subsidiary of the telecommunications company Shaw Communications. As of 2010, Shaw Direct had over 900,000 subscribers. It broadcasts on Ku band from two commu ...
**
Cogeco Cable
**
EastLink Cable
**
Rogers Cable
*''Japan''
**Rakuten
*''Mexico and Central America'':
**
SKY México
The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space.
In the field of astronomy ...
*''Philippines'':
**
Cablelink,
Globe
A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glo ...
,
Sky Cable
Sky Cable (stylized as SKYcable) is a cable television service of Sky Cable Corporation in the Philippines. It covers areas across the country with both digital and analog cable services, and it has 700,000 subscribers, controlling 45% of ...
, and
PLDT
PLDT, Inc., formerly known as the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company ( fil, Kompanya ng Teleponong Pangmalayuan ng Pilipinas), is a Philippine telecommunications, internet and digital service holdings company. It is one of the country's ...
/
Smart
Smart or SMART may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Smart'' (Hey! Say! JUMP album), 2014
* Smart (Hotels.com), former mascot of Hotels.com
* ''Smart'' (Sleeper album), 1995 debut album by Sleeper
* '' SMart'', a children's television se ...
*''South America and Caribbean (except Brazil)'':
**
DirecTV
DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...
*''United Kingdom'':
**
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...
*''Vietnam'':
** VTV Cab
Applications, Features and Platforms supported
Apps are currently available for:
* Smart TVs (depends on manufacturer/model)
*
Apple TV
*
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...
*
Xbox One
The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
*
Xbox Series X/S
The Xbox Series X/S are home video game consoles developed by Microsoft. They were both released on November 10, 2020, as the fourth generation Xbox, succeeding the Xbox One. Along with Sony's PlayStation 5, also released in November 202 ...
* Android devices
*
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
devices
*
Windows Phone
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design l ...
*
Roku
Roku ( ) is a brand of hardware digital media players manufactured by American company Roku, Inc. They offer access to streaming media content from online services.
The first Roku model, developed in collaboration with Netflix, was introduced ...
*
Amazon Kindle Fire
The Amazon Fire, formerly called the Kindle Fire, is a line of tablet computers developed by Amazon. Built with Quanta Computer, the Kindle Fire was first released in November 2011, featuring a color 7-inch multi-touch display with IPS tec ...
*
PlayStation 4
*
PlayStation 5
*
Amazon Fire TV
Amazon Fire TV (stylized as amazon fireTV) is a line of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon. The devices are small network appliances that deliver digital audio and video content streamed via the Internet to a connected ...
* Chromecast
* Android TV
For the 2013-14 season, League Pass's apps were updated with the ability to select home and away feeds on all games, and video-on-demand access for games broadcast nationally.
[Whitaker, Lang. blogs.nba.com]
New NBA League Pass Features Announced
. Accessed 5th October 2013
For the 2016-17 season, a new feature known as "Mobile View" was introduced, which allows viewers to access a special feed of the home telecast with optimizations for viewing on smartphones. The Mobile View feed will utilize a new dedicated camera angle with a tighter, zoomed-in shot of gameplay. The league will provide a camera and a producer for the feature at each regular-season game, who will have access to the special camera and all others in use for the production.
WNBA Season Pass
From 1999 to 2001, NBA League Pass had a companion service called WNBA Season Pass which showed out-of-market games of the
Women's National Basketball Association
The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Natio ...
. The WNBA has discontinued this service; today, all national broadcasts are on
ABC,
ESPN2
ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%).
ESPN2 was initially fo ...
, or
NBA TV
NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regula ...
. However, they now offer the WNBA Broadband Season Pass, a web program that allows subscribers to watch every game live for each season.
Summer League Pass
The
2013 NBA Summer League
The 2013 NBA Summer League is a pro basketball league run by the NBA just after the 2013 NBA draft. It gives newly drafted players a chance to test their skills against each other, and to give them a feel for professional basketball. All 30 NBA ...
was available as a streaming subscription service with an app' for
IOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
and
Android devices in the 2013 off-season. Priced at $14.99, all 61 games in both the
Orlando Pro Summer League and the
Las Vegas League were included in the price.
[NBA.com.]
NBA TV to televise 62 Summer League games, title game
. Accessed; October 2nd, 2013. Summer League is now included as part of the standard League Pass offering internationally.
See also
*
NFL Sunday Ticket
NFL Sunday Ticket is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasts National Football League (NFL) regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. It carries all regional Sunday afternoon games produced by Fox and CBS. The ideal custome ...
*
MLS Direct Kick
MLS Direct Kick was an out-of-market sports package distributed by most cable and satellite providers in North America. As of the 2011 season, package subscribers will be able to watch up to 221 Major League Soccer regular season games as well as ...
*
MLB Extra Innings
MLB Extra Innings is an out-of-market sports package distributed in North America by satellite provider DirecTV since 1996 and by most cable providers since 2001. The package allowed its subscribers to see up to 80 out-of-market Major League Bas ...
*
NHL Center Ice
NHL Center Ice is an out-of-market sports package distributed by most cable and satellite providers in the United States and Canada. The package allows its subscribers to see up to forty out-of-market National Hockey League games a week using ...
*
NASCAR Hot Pass
*
National Basketball Association criticisms and controversies
The National Basketball Association (NBA) has faced a multitude of criticisms from sports publications, fans, and its own players.
Racial and cultural issues
Since the late 1990s, and especially since the retirement of Michael Jordan in 1999, ...
References
External links
Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nba League Pass
Satellite television
National Basketball Association on television
Out-of-market sports packages
Television channels and stations established in 1995
PlayStation 4 software