NBA

The 2026-27 season is the NBA's 81st. Opening night was Tuesday, October 20, 2026, with a three-game NBC and Peacock tripleheader, and the regular season ends on Sunday, April 11, 2027. Each team still plays 82 games, but the schedule was released as 80 per team plus two more that are decided by the NBA Cup: the Cup's first two knockout rounds count as games 81 and 82, and the Cup final is an extra game that does not count in the record.

The big structural landmarks:

• NBA Cup: group play starts Friday, October 30; the championship game is Friday, December 11 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis (a new venue, replacing T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas).
• International games: Paris on January 14 and Manchester on January 17, both between the Spurs and Pelicans.
• All-Star Weekend: Phoenix, with the game on Sunday, February 21, 2027.
• Play-in and playoffs: play-in April 13 to 16, playoffs from April 17, Finals in June (dates not yet in our sources).

Last season's champion is the New York Knicks, who beat the San Antonio Spurs 4-1 in the 2026 Finals, according to NBC Sports' schedule release.

Note. Dates marked "Projected" on this page come from Wikipedia's season article ("planned") or from secondary reports, not from a league announcement we can read under our source rules.

The league published the full regular-season schedule on August 13. The table below holds the dates that matter for viewers: the Cup, the holiday slates, the trade deadline, All-Star, and the postseason.

Two things to know about how national games are carved up:

• Almost every night has a named national home. Mondays are Peacock, Tuesdays are NBC's "Coast 2 Coast" doubleheader, Wednesdays ESPN, Fridays Prime Video, with Thursday and Saturday Prime games late in the season.
• On Coast 2 Coast Tuesdays an NBC station chooses the 8 p.m. ET game, the 11 p.m. ET game, or both. Peacock streams both everywhere.

There are three national partners under 11-year deals that began in 2025-26: ESPN and ABC, NBC and Peacock, and Amazon Prime Video. This is the second season of the arrangement. NBA TV picks up a few games, and NBA League Pass is the league's own out-of-market package.

• A game you want is national (a star matchup, a holiday, any playoff game): it is on ESPN, ABC, NBC, Peacock or Prime Video. League Pass normally blacks out nationally televised games in the U.S.
• A game is not national (most games): it is on your team's local broadcaster if you live in its market; elsewhere it is on League Pass.
• Spanish language: Telemundo has 10 Sunday Night Basketball games and the All-Star Game.

For the local layer, the biggest change this year is the end of FanDuel Sports Network after 2025-26. The league and its teams reached new deals team by team; the NBA has also reportedly explored a shared streaming hub that has not launched (Wikipedia, not confirmed by the league). Prices change often, so the table shows only what we could source and the date we saw it.

Sixteen teams make the playoffs: the top six in each conference by winning percentage qualify directly, and seeds seven through ten go through the play-in tournament.

Play-in (April 13 to 16, projected):

1. Seed 7 hosts seed 8. The winner becomes the No. 7 seed.
2. Seed 9 hosts seed 10. The loser is eliminated.
3. The loser of the 7-8 game hosts the winner of the 9-10 game. The winner becomes the No. 8 seed.

Playoffs (from April 17, projected): four rounds, every series best-of-seven in a 2-2-1-1-1 home pattern. The bracket is fixed once it is set; there is no reseeding. The Finals are on ABC.

Who carries what in 2027: Prime Video has the whole play-in and the Eastern Conference Finals exclusively; ESPN and ABC have the Western Conference Finals (the conference finals alternate on a rotation); the first two rounds are shared among Prime Video, ESPN/ABC and NBC/Peacock.