Amazon is getting into college basketball, and its first partner is the biggest team brand in the sport.
Prime Video announced a multi-year partnership with Duke, including a three-game deal for the upcoming 2026-27 college basketball season:
• Wednesday, Nov. 25: Duke vs. UConn in Las Vegas. A rematch of the most memorable game of the 2025-26 season, UConn’s comeback win in the Elite Eight, the day before Thanksgiving.
• Monday, Dec. 21: Duke vs. Michigan at Madison Square Garden. Michigan is the defending national champions, and both teams will start the season ranked in the Top 5.
• Saturday, Feb. 20: Duke vs. Gonzaga in Detroit. This will be the third straight year that Duke plays in a high-profile non-conference game in February.
This will be Amazon Prime Video’s initial entry into college sports, taking advantage of loopholes in the established TV contracts that allow non-conference matchups at neutral sites outside of the participating conference’s footprints to air on networks other than those with conference deals.
Prime Video has been aggressively pursuing high-profile rights deals in pro sports, including the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football,” multiple prime-time games per week with the NBA, the Masters, NASCAR, WNBA and NWSL.
On Duke’s side, the Blue Devils were already one of the highest revenue drivers in college basketball (No. 1 among teams in the 2026 Sweet 16), along with a robust NIL budget and early-adopter front office system led by GM Rachel Baker that has the program near the top of the recruiting and transfer rankings this spring.
For a college basketball TV landscape dominated by ESPN, Fox Sports and CBS, the deal opens new pathways for nontraditional networks and streaming services to carve out premium inventory with teams eager to drive new revenue streams to cover increasing NIL costs.
While Duke’s men’s basketball competitors in the ACC take notice, this should feel familiar to Notre Dame, which has used its independent status in college football to have a longstanding and lucrative standalone partnership with NBC to air its home games.
Analysis:
It is not hard to understand Prime Video’s strategy and how it will continue being a big part of sports fans’ lives. While the Duke deal is just three games, it is a start to what could be an expansion into more major college hoops over the next decade. The keyword is “major.”
Prime Video is mostly looking for programming at the top. It already has the NFL, the NBA, the Masters, the Yankees in New York, the NHL in Canada and major soccer properties in Europe. Duke falls into that category in college hoops. It probably didn’t hurt that Charlie Neiman, the head of sports partnerships for Prime Video, was a water polo player at Duke.
Amazon’s goal is to make its subscription membership a must-have for anyone with its “free shipping” and its top-flight sports. This deal adds to it. — Andrew Marchand
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