FAQs

Why Are NBA Games Blacked Out?

NBA League Pass enforces two types of blackout.

Games shown by a national partner (ABC, ESPN, NBC, NBCSN, Peacock or Prime Video) aren’t available to stream anywhere in the US. That covers nearly 240 games this season, plus the entire postseason.

Games shown on NBA TV or a regional sports network aren’t available inside that team’s home market, but you can watch them from anywhere else in the country.

Both exist to protect the value of the league’s broadcast deals, which are its single biggest source of revenue. With the new 11-year, $77bn agreement in place, that’s not going to loosen any time soon.

Are Playoff & Finals Games Blacked Out?

Yes, every one of them. Under the current media deal the whole postseason airs exclusively on national partners, with no local broadcasts at all.

Prime Video has all six Play-In games and the Eastern Conference Finals, ESPN has the Western Conference Finals, and the Finals are on ABC. First-round games are split between NBC, Peacock, Amazon, ESPN and ABC.

So if you subscribe in the US, you can’t watch a single playoff game live on League Pass without connecting to a server outside the US and Canada.

Why Are NBA TV Games Blocked in My Area?

Every NBA League Pass subscription includes NBA TV, but some games are still blocked without a VPN.

That happens when a regional sports network is simulcasting the same game in your market. If NBA TV and the YES Network are both showing a Nets game and you’re in Brooklyn, both streams are blocked.

Connect to a server in a different market to fix it. Just avoid the opposing team’s market, or you’ll hit the same blackout from the other side.

Using a VPN is legal in the US and almost everywhere else.

Bypassing blackouts is a different question: it goes against the NBA’s terms of use, even though you’ve paid for the subscription.

In practice, I’ve never seen an account closed over it. What happens is that League Pass detects the server and shows the 7027 error, so you switch to another location and carry on.

The higher-risk move is subscribing at another country’s price with a payment method that doesn’t match your billing address. That’s a clearer breach, and the consequence would be losing a subscription you’ve prepaid for the whole season.

Where Is NBA League Pass Cheapest?

League Pass is priced market by market, and the gap can be large. A standard US subscription is $16.99 per month, while India and Turkey come in at a few dollars a month.

In many instances, you’ll need a payment method and billing address from that country, and some of the cheapest markets don’t allow payment methods from non-residents.