The teams broadcasters love and don't

The Raptors and Magic are expected to be good, but you'll need League Pass to find them. Not so for the Mavericks or (duh) Warriors.

Good morning. Dennis Schroder has another three teams in him. Let's basketball.

With the release of the full 2026-27 NBA season schedule last week, we can see what's in the media partners' hearts. Consensus has mostly settled on the hierarchy of the league's 30 teams next season, with the Kawhi Leonard trade (and possibly punishment) up in the air, James Harden still an unmysterious free agent and a few restricted free agents hanging in the wind. Something always interesting to consider is the context of expected team quality when compared to the number of games each team is getting on what we consider "national T.V." for the season. Of course, "national T.V." is a misnomer: we're now talking about presence on the major national streaming services who have partnered with the NBA.

The current paradigm gives each team at least two games and no more than 34 on a major streamer. The rest are available to local audiences via a local broadcast/streaming partner and to non-local audiences via League Pass. The major streamers want people to tune in, obviously, and subscribe to their services. So they are quite biased toward teams and games people will want to see.

Usually, that tracks with team quality: squads in line to win more games will be more likely to have lots of "national T.V" games, and the opposite will apply to teams that look like they are headed to the lottery. But there are exceptions in both directions. Here they are for this season.