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Amazon is getting into college basketball, and its first partner is the biggest team brand in the sport.<\/p>\n
Prime Video announced a multi-year partnership with Duke, including a three-game deal for the upcoming 2026-27 college basketball season:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Wednesday, Nov. 25: Duke vs. UConn in Las Vegas<\/strong>. A rematch of the most memorable game of the 2025-26 season, UConn\u2019s\u00a0 comeback win in the Elite Eight, the day before Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n \u2022 Monday, Dec. 21: Duke vs. Michigan at Madison Square Garden<\/strong>. Michigan is the defending national champions, and both teams will start the season ranked in the Top 5.<\/p>\n \u2022 Saturday, Feb. 20: Duke vs. Gonzaga in Detroit<\/strong>. This will be the third straight year that Duke plays in a high-profile non-conference game in February.<\/p>\n This will be Amazon Prime Video\u2019s 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\u2019s footprints to air on networks other than those with conference deals.<\/p>\n Prime Video has been aggressively pursuing high-profile rights deals in pro sports, including the NFL\u2019s \u201cThursday Night Football,\u201d multiple prime-time games per week with the NBA, the Masters, NASCAR, WNBA and NWSL.<\/p>\n On Duke\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n While Duke\u2019s men\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n It is not hard to understand Prime Video\u2019s strategy and how it will continue being a big part of sports fans\u2019 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 \u201cmajor.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019t hurt that Charlie Neiman, the head of sports partnerships for Prime Video, was a water polo player at Duke.<\/p>\nAnalysis:<\/h2>\n