Warner Bros. Discovery has announced coverage plans for the first round of the National Basketball Association Playoffs on NBA TV, which includes back-to-back nights of live game broadcasts beginning on Monday, April 22. The Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers will face off from Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio featuring play-by-play announcer Kevin Calabro, analyst Brendan Haywood and sideline reporter Lauren Jbara. This will mark Jbara’s playoff debut with NBA TV, which comes after officially joining TNT Sports last fall. Calabro, Haywood and Jbara will also return on Thursday, April 25 at 7 p.m. EST for Game 3 between the Magic and Cavaliers from Kia Center in Orlando, Fla.

The second game of the series between the Indiana Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks will be presented on NBA TV at 8:30 p.m. EST and features the return of Gus Johnson behind the microphone for playoff action. Johnson, who serves as the lead play-by-play voice for college football and college basketball coverage for FOX Sports, will work with Jim Jackson and Dennis Scott on the call from Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisc.

Over the course of the 2023-24 NBA season, Johnson filled in on select New York Knicks game telecasts on MSG Networks, where he previously served as an announcer and studio host for 16 years. Coverage of games throughout the NBA Playoffs on NBA TV will include pregame, halftime and studio coverage as well.

NBA TV could televise up to nine games throughout the 2024 NBA Playoffs depending on the outcomes of the individual series. Star players such as Paolo Banchero, Damian Lillard, Tyrese Haliburton and Donovan Mitchell are expected to participate across the matchups. The league-owned broadcast entity jointly managed by the NBA and Warner Bros. Discovery is coming off its most-viewed season since 2015-16.

TNT Sports will also present playoff games on TNT and available to stream utilizing the B/R Sports Add-On through Max. Coverage will conclude with the Western Conference Finals with a spot to compete for the Larry O’Brien Trophy in the balance.

Four Eastern Conference teams took the court on Wednesday night for the first two games within the 2024 National Basketball Association Play-In Tournament, both of which were broadcast by ESPN. The network’s NBA on ESPN broadcast property began its live game coverage with a matchup between the No. 7 Philadelphia 76ers and No. 8 Miami Heat, which featured stars such as Joel Embiid, Jimmy Butler and Tyrese Maxey.

A dramatic late-game comeback secured a one-point victory for the 76ers and attained an average of 3.40 million viewers on ESPN and ESPN2, which is up 52% over last year’s matchup between the regular-season seven and eight seeds in the conference. Additionally, the game peaked with 5.49 million viewers at 9:30 p.m. EST on ESPN. Play-by-play announcer Mike Breen, analysts Doris Burke and JJ Redick and reporter Lisa Salters were on the call for the game, averaging 3.31 million viewers on the network. An alternate broadcast – NBA Unplugged with Kevin Hart – was broadcast on ESPN2 and co-produced by ESPN, Omaha Productions and Hartbeat and averaged 98,000 viewers.

The 76ers-Heat game attained the spot for the most-watched Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament game of all time and the sixth-largest audience among the 23 telecasts of matchups in the round, which was introduced in 2021. Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch reported that it was also the most-watched Play-In Tournament game that did not include the Los Angeles Lakers or Golden State Warriors.

The second game of the night featured the No. 9 Chicago Bulls against the No. 10 Atlanta Hawks with Ryan Ruocco, Richard Jefferson and Cassidy Hubbarth on the call. The Bulls ended up winning the game by a final score of 131-116, which attained an average of 3.07 million viewers. This metric is up 31% from the matchup between the regular-season ninth and 10th seeds in the conference last year and is now the second-most watched Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament game ever.

As a whole, ESPN averaged 3.25 million viewers for its broadcasts of the Play-In Tournament across ESPN and ESPN2, which is up 25% from last year. NBA Countdown, which was hosted by Malika Andrews and included analysts Stephen A. Smith, Michael Wilbon and Bob Myers, averaged 591,000 leading into the doubleheader of games. This edition of the studio program was up 52% from the comparable broadcast last year that preceded NBA Play-In Tournament coverage on the network.

ESPN will resume its NBA broadcasts when the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls battle to attain the final spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The winner of that matchup will face the Boston Celtics, starting on Sunday, April 21 at 1 p.m. EST on ABC. ESPN recently announced its Game 1 coverage of the NBA Playoffs, which includes a six-game slate across network platforms over the weekend. David Roberts, ESPN Head of Event & Studio Production, also discussed the coverage earlier this week with members of the media.

The NBA is currently in the penultimate season of its existing national television media rights deals with The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery, collectively worth a reported $24 billion over the eight-year contracts. The league entered into an exclusive negotiating window with both broadcasting partners starting on Saturday, March 9, but is reportedly unlikely to reach a new deal before its expiration on Monday, according to Alex Sherman of CNBC.

Even if no deal ends up being reached by the deadline, both companies are in discussions about new media rights contracts with the NBA, as confirmed by the league. These discussions follow a 2023-24 season that garnered an average of 1.09 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, TNT and NBA TV, which is up 1% over last year and represents the highest average across networks in four years, according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch. Both networks will begin broadcasting the NBA Playoffs on Saturday, April 20.

“We continue to have productive discussions with Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery on a renewal of our media deals,” an NBA spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.

Starting next week, the NBA will have the ability to engage in negotiations with other companies interested in the media rights package. As reported by CNBC, Amazon, Apple, YouTube TV, Comcast (NBCUniversal/Peacock) and Netflix have all expressed potential interest through conversations with the league. Numerous reports have indicated that the league is looking to add a streaming element into its next deal and is looking for an increase in rights fees. The NBA could reportedly look to sell games within the In-Season Tournament to a separate media company, potentially adding a fourth partner in the deal.

Warner Bros. Discovery linear network TBS began airing NBA games in 1984, with TNT following four years later. The Walt Disney Company has presented the league since 2002 across ABC and ESPN, which includes broadcasts of the NBA Finals. Both companies are aiming to launch a new joint streaming venture with FOX Corporation in the fall that would grant subscribers access to games and networks from all three companies.