Tech
How to watch the 2025-2026 NBA season: Your guide to streaming games without cable

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For the first time in more than two decades, the NBA has new broadcast partners. That means that, like other sports leagues, watching games is about to get even more complicated.
A new NBA season is about to begin, and whether or not you still have cable, you're going to need a streaming service or two to catch the action live. Between regional sports networks, blackout games, and national broadcasts, we have a lot to cover. Buckle up, basketball fans. We've got your guide to watching the 2025-2026 NBA season, including all of the best streaming deals.
When does the 2025-2026 NBA season start?
The NBA season officially tips off on Oct. 21 with a primetime double header — Houston Rockets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder and Golden State Warriors vs. Los Angeles Lakers. The 82-game regular season wraps up April 12, 2025.
What channels do I need to watch live NBA games this season?
The NBA's long-standing contract with TNT has officially concluded. This season, you'll need NBC instead. After 23 long years, the league struck up a new deal with NBC — the network and its streaming counterpart, Peacock, will air up to 100 regular season games on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. It will have been 8,532 days between NBC's last NBA broadcast and the 2025-2026 season opener. In addition to the games broadcast on NBC, there will also be several games exclusively streaming on Peacock.
Besides NBC, the NBA has also struck up a landmark deal with Amazon this season. For the first time, Prime Video is getting a slice of the basketball schedule. It was only a matter of time, TBH. Prime Video will present exclusive global coverage for 66 regular season games, as well as a new Black Friday NBA game, all games from the knockout rounds of this year's NBA Cup, the play-in tournament, and select playoff games.
In addition to NBC, Peacock, and Prime Video, you'll also need ABC, ESPN, NBA TV, and, of course, your regional sports network, as in years past. Here's a breakdown of the general TV schedule for national broadcasts:
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Sunday — ABC/ESPN and NBC/Peacock
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Monday — Peacock
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Tuesday — NBC/Peacock
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Wednesday — ESPN
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Thursday — Prime Video
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Friday — Prime Video and ESPN
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Saturday — ABC/ESPN and Prime Video
How to watch NBA games this season without cable
National broadcasts
There will be 247 national broadcasts this season, with games airing on ABC, ESPN, NBC, Peacock, and Prime Video, compared to last season's 172. As noted above, even if you have cable, you'll still need Peacock and Prime Video in order to watch those exclusive games. No cable? No worries. Peacock has you covered with NBC broadcasts as well as Peacock exclusives, and ESPN's new direct-to-consumer streaming service has you covered with ESPN and ABC broadcasts. You can watch nearly 250 games this season with Peacock, ESPN Unlimited, and Prime Video alone.
Local broadcasts
Unfortunately, national broadcasts only make up a small fraction of the full slate of games. Most games are broadcast locally via regional sports networks (RSNs). For these games, it will largely come down to whether or not the team you want to watch is in-market or out-of-market.
In-market games:
In order to watch in-market games, you'll need access to your local RSN. Many of these networks (but not all) offer their own streaming subscriptions, like FanDuel Sports Network, Monumental Sports Network, or Gotham Sports. If you're unsure which RSN you need to watch your local team, you can check out the FAQs below.
The most direct way to access these RSNs is through their individual subscription offers, but not every RSN has its own streaming counterpart. For those that don't, you'll need a cable alternative like Fubo or DirecTV Stream, which can cost a pretty penny.
Out-of-market games:
If you're a fan of an out-of-market team, you'll need NBA League Pass. League Pass streams practically all regional broadcasts for teams that aren't in your local market. For example, if you live in New York City, you'll be able to watch every team via NBA League Pass except the Knicks and Nets. NBA League Pass costs $16.99 per month to watch on one device with commercials or $24.99 per month to watch on up to three devices with in-arena streams (no commercials).
What is an RSN, and which one do I need?
Unlike the NFL, which offers national broadcasts of most games with specific in-market choice games, the NBA (as well as the NHL and MLB) complicates things with regional sports networks (RSNs). These are essentially sports-specific TV channels dedicated to a local market or geographic area. If you live in the same region as your favorite team, you'll need to know which RSN broadcasts your team's games. Some examples of RSNs are FanDuel Sports Network (which replaced Bally Sports), NBC Sports, and Altitude Sports. Head over to the NBA schedule if you aren't sure which network your team plays on. For a complete list of each team's RSN, see the FAQs below.
If you really only care about your local team, many RSNs offer subscriptions for you to tune in without cable. For example, Fan Duel Sports Network Southeast (which includes Atlanta Hawks and Memphis Grizzlies games) is $19.99 per month or $124.99 for the whole NBA season. Monumental Sports Network (which includes the Washington Wizards) is $19.99 per month or $199.99 per year. A quick Google search for your team's RSN will let you know if there's a separate subscription available. Of course, these RSN subscriptions will not include nationally broadcast games on ABC, ESPN, NBC, Peacock, Prime Video, or NBA TV.
The best live TV streaming deals for NBA games
Best for ESPN and ABC games: Save 16% on the ESPN Unlimited yearly plan
ESPN's direct-to-consumer streaming service, launched this past summer, unlocks access to the entire suite of ESPN networks and services in one subscription. You'll get to stream NBA games from ESPN and ABC (as well as plenty of other sports and leagues). It typically costs $29.99 per month, but if you commit to a full year, you'll save about 16% or nearly $60. Of course, you can watch more than just NBA games, making the yearly plan worth it, particularly for fans of multiple sports.
Best for NBC and Peacock games: Save 17% on Peacock annual subscription
When Peacock isn't running any sort of special (which it does a few times per year — keep an eye out around Black Friday), the best Peacock deal for most people on any given day is the annual subscription plan. When you pay upfront for the year, you'll end up getting 12 months for the price of 10. A monthly subscription with ads usually costs $10.99 per month (which adds up to $131.88), but paying upfront drops that price to only $109.99 (which breaks down to $9.17 per month). That's a total savings of 17%.
The Peacock Premium Plus plan costs $169.99 per year (which breaks down to about $14.16 per month instead of $16.99) and offers ad-free content. Live sports, however, will still include ads. If you're subscribing to Peacock specifically for NBA games, you might as well go for the cheaper option.
More Peacock deals:
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Free Peacock Premium for eligible Xfinity customers
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Free Peacock Premium for Instacart+ subscribers
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Free Peacock Premium for Walmart+ subscribers
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Students save $8/month on one year of Peacock Premium
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First responders, medical professionals, military personnel, and teachers save $7/month on Peacock Premium
Best for Prime Video games: Save $6 per month on Prime Video only
If you're only interested in Prime Video for the NBA games, you probably don't care about all the extra perks of being a Prime member. In that case, you don't need to pay $14.99 per month for Prime. You can simply subscribe to Prime Video as a standalone service for only $8.99 per month instead and save yourself $6 per month.
Of course, Amazon makes it unnecessarily complicated to sign up for Prime Video on its own. When you go to sign up for a subscription, be sure to select the option to "see more plans" or "change plans." Then, navigate to the option for Prime Video on its own. You can still cancel whenever you want, just as you would a full Prime membership.
More Prime Video deals:
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Save 22% on an Amazon Prime annual membership
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Students save $7.50 per month with Prime for Young Adults
Best for out-of-market games: Save over 40% on NBA League Pass annual subscription
Similar to NFL's Sunday Ticket, minus the outrageous fee, NBA League Pass gives fans access to live out-of-market games. Plus, you'll get to enjoy games from the NBA's archive, analysis, documentaries, highlights, and more. Local games on NBA TV, as well as nationally broadcast games, will be blacked out live. You can tune into locally blacked-out games three days after the live broadcast and nationally broadcast games three hours after. It costs $16.99 or $24.99 per month, but if you pay for the whole season upfront, it'll only cost you $109.99 or $159.99. The more expensive option unlocks ad-free viewing and the ability to stream on three devices at once.
Tech
Twitch unveils its next era: dual-format streaming, AI clips, and new sponsorship tools
TwitchCon 2025 kicked off with a massive celebration of its 10th Anniversary, including a whole host of new announcements about changes coming to the social media platform.
"As we head into 2025, our goal continues to be to make Twitch the absolute best place for our streamers, and also, an exciting place for new creators and viewers to build and find their communities," Dan Clancy, the CEO of Twitch, said in a press release about the new changes.
"We’ll continue to focus on expanding our user base and introducing more people to livestreaming, as well as the critical and important work of supporting those who have already found a home here."
Dual-format streaming
One way Twitch is planning to do that is through dual-format streaming, which lets streamers go live in vertical and horizontal formats simultaneously — pretty ideal if you don't want to choose between your laptop viewers or phone viewers.
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Twitch began testing this in August, so it shouldn't come as a huge surprise.
AI AI AI AI AI
If it feels like every social media platform is leaning into AI, that's probably because every social media platform is leaning into AI — and Twitch is a part of that.
During TwitchCon 2025, the company announced its partnership with Meta's AI glasses, which allow streamers to go live directly from the glasses. Twitch is still working to update its mobile app to support this.
Beyond Meta's AI glasses, Twitch is also using AI to automatically create clips from a previous stream so viewers can catch up on good moments they might have missed.
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"We want to give streamers something to do on Twitch even if one of their favorite streamers is not live," Twitch wrote in a press release. "We want to make it easy for them to dive into your content and catch up on the best moments they missed from your previous streams, so they’re ready for your next one."
New sponsorship tools
Five months ago, Twitch let streamers run their own promotions, leading medium-sized creators to increase their gifting revenue by an average of 30 to 45 percent. This year, Twitch also launched other updates to help streamers get sponsorships in the Creator Dashboard. The company plans to roll out those sponsorship offers to all monetizing streamers, including Affiliates, in the coming months.
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The company also announced updates to how it enforces community guidelines, expansions to the Creator Clubs Program, and two new roles: a lead moderator and a role for agents, managers, or other representatives.
Tech
The Netflix alternative you’ve been waiting for, now $20 for life
TL;DR: Save 86% on a lifetime subscription to BitMar’s content finder for a limited time.
Tired of paying monthly fees just to scroll past the same shows on Netflix? There’s finally a different way to watch what you want, when you want, without paying anything extra.
BitMar, a streaming service alternative, is a powerful search engine that helps you find free movies or TV shows already available online, except you don’t have to sift through bogus or dangerous websites. Pay $19.99 for lifelong access and discover millions of channels, episodes, movies, and songs for no additional cost (reg. $150).
BitMar is powered by the Bing search engine, but it only has eyes for free streaming content. You’ll use a far more user-friendly interface to plug in a channel, genre, actor, or a specific movie or TV show you have in mind, then this content aggregator scours the web to find it.
Is it legal? Yes. BitMar is fully compliant with copyright laws — and it’s simply locating content already available on the web.
If you’re wondering why you wouldn’t just spend the time searching for it yourself, that’s the reason right there — it saves you time. BitMar also filters out the garbage to leave you with high-quality, ad-free content.
Enjoy no subscription streaming with a BitMar lifetime subscription at $19.99 (reg. $150).
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Tech
Shudders best horror comedies to scare you AND make you laugh

Horror and comedy are sometimes thought of as being at opposing ends of the genre spectrum — but it doesn't have to be that way.
Alongside its original movies and truly scary movies, horror streaming platform Shudder has a nice little section reserved for horror comedy. Think parodies, tongue-in-cheek gore fests, and the type of films that can make you laugh even while they're grossing you out or putting your nerves on edge.
I've combed through the archives to track down the best horror comedies on Shudder, from Josh Ruben's highly entertaining Scare Me to Lee Min-jae's very silly Zombie for Sale…
Zombie for Sale

Credit: Christine Rampage / AMC Networks
What's it about?
A family finds a way to profit from a zombie.
Why should you watch it?
What if zombie bites weren’t all bad? More specifically, what if a nip from the undead would give the impotent new life below the belt? That’s the preposterous premise that kicks off this gleefully bonkers South Korean comedy. The Park family is scraping by running a battered gas station when their fortunes are turned by a zombie (Jung Ga-ram) with a rejuvenating bite. That’s just the first act of director Lee Min-jae’s playful horror-comedy. Family hijinks, ghoulish action, gross-out gags, and absurdly earnest romance also pop up, making for a movie that is chaotically charming and pleasantly unpredictable.* — Kristy Puchko, Entertainment Editor
How to watch: Zombie for Sale is now streaming on Shudder.
Nina Forever
What's it about?
A grief-stricken man starts up a relationship with his colleague only to be haunted by his dead ex-girlfriend whenever they have sex.
Why should you watch it?
Yearning for a dark comedy that’s bloody fun? You’ll fall hard for Nina Forever. Co-writers/co-directors Ben and Chris Blaine have dreamed up a truly deranged tale of love and letting go, and it all begins with a macabre crush. Grocery clerk Holly (Abigail Hardingham) hopes she can help mournful motorcyclist Rob (Cian Barry) forget his last girlfriend, who died in a grisly accident. But every time these new lovers crawl into bed, Nina (Fiona O'Shaughnessy) intrudes. Or more specifically, her broken and bloody corpse crashes the party with snarky one-liners and withering eye-rolls. Full of gore, sex, and jaw-droppingly outrageous gags, this horror-comedy earns its hard-R, yet delivers a surprisingly tender tale.* — K.P.
How to watch: Nina Forever is now streaming on Shudder.
Deadstream

Credit: Shudder
What's it about?
A "cancelled" YouTube prankster livestreams a tour of a haunted house in an attempt to redeem himself.
Why should you watch it?
"Full of sick thrills and dark humor, it feels like a real find," wrote Mashable's Kristy Puchko in her review. "It doesn't need a big budget, an established horror franchise, or big names to stand out. Briskly paced, wildly fun, and surprisingly smart, Deadstream is a bloody terrific good time. So, keep an eye out for it."
How to watch: Deadstream is now streaming on Shudder.
Scare Me
What's it about?
Two writers take turns telling each other scary stories after the cabins they're staying in lose power.
Why should you watch it?
Scare Me is a great example of a very simple premise being executed perfectly. Josh Ruben's tale of an amateur writer growing increasingly jealous of his professional author cabin neighbor is brilliantly written and directed, splicing witty exchanges with cleverly conjured campfire vignettes that take on a life of their own when they're performed. And this one really is all about the performances — as well as writing and directing, Ruben also stars in Scare Me alongside The Boys' Aya Cash and Saturday Night Live's Chris Redd, and the focus on storytelling means the trio have to break out their full range of (very impressive) acting talents.
There's laughter, there's tension, and although the actual scares are few, there's a creeping sense of unease that twists into something more in the film's final act.
How to watch: Scare Me is now streaming on Shudder.
One Cut of the Dead
What's it about?
A film crew attempts to shoot a low-budget zombie movie in an abandoned factory.
Why should you watch it?
I can safely say that I've never seen a film quite like One Cut of the Dead. Shin'ichirô Ueda's (recently remade) comedy horror (which is far more heavy on the comedy than the horror) is essentially a movie within a movie within a movie — a Russian doll-style story about a crew making a shoestring zombie flick.
We spend the first half of the run time watching the zombie film itself, but things really get interesting in the movie's second half, when we zoom out (and back in time) to watch the director and the production crew putting the whole thing together.
If that explanation has left you feeling slightly confused, it might be for the best — One Cut of the Dead is the sort of film that's hard to explain in words, but is probably more entertaining the less you know going in.
How to watch: One Cut of the Dead is now streaming on Shudder.
Boar
What's it about?
A small town in Australia is stalked by a man-eating boar.
Why should you watch it?
Boar may not appear in the comedy category on Shudder, but let's be honest here — any film that features a hippo-sized monster pig going up against a former WWE wrestler has to be a little bit tongue-in-cheek.
Fortunately, Chris Sun's Boar is exactly that: a lighthearted popcorn-muncher that mixes some entertainingly crude dialogue with some truly ridiculous fight sequences.
The perfect film to watch with a group of friends and a few beers.
How to watch: Boar is now streaming on Shudder.
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Scare Package
What's it about?
A video store owner takes on a new staffer, who quickly gets an education in the fine art of horror movies.
Why should you watch it?
Scare Package is essentially seven miniature horror films for the price of one, an entertaining anthology from seven different directors that parodies every horror movie stereotype you can possibly imagine. Ridiculous gory deaths? Cheesy one-liners? The serial killer who won't stay dead? Each trope gets its own moment to shine in this delightful mishmash, which is as much Cabin in the Woods-style satire as it is a love letter to the genre.
How to watch: Scare Package is now streaming on Shudder.
Glorious

Credit: Shudder
What's it about?
After separating from his partner, a troubled man stops at a rest stop and strikes up a conversation with an unseen figure in a bathroom stall who claims to be a god.
Why should you watch it?
You might think a movie set almost entirely in a rest-stop bathroom would be a hard sell, but the combination of a well-written script, Rebekah McKendry's creative direction and some top acting from Ryan Kwanten, J.K. Simmons, and André Lamar helps keep the pace of this one going. Extra points for the creativeness of the idea and the weird genre mishmash, which combines silly humour, tension, and Lovecraftian horror.
How to watch: Glorious is now streaming on Shudder.
*This blurb appeared on a previous Mashable list.
UPDATE: Oct. 16, 2025, 2:30 p.m. UTC This list was first published on Sept. 7. 2023. It has since been updated to reflect current streaming options.
Do you like scary movies? Peruse our editor-chosen list of 100 of the best horror films and use the filters to narrow down your picks for which to watch tonight.
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