The NBA has never been more popular than it is as we enter the 2025-26 season.
While that’s great news for the sport and the future of the league, the downside is that, in many ways, it’s never been more difficult to watch every Lakers game in a season.
The introduction of NBC and Amazon Prime as broadcasting partners this year only adds to the growing list of places you’ll need to go to find the Lakers and, more frankly, subscription services you’ll need to buy.
Keeping track of when the Lakers play
is often hard enough. Now, adding the element of the games being on one of five places only adds to the confusion. So, let us help you out as best we can to clear up some of the confusion.
First, you can keep this tweet handy or save the photo to help you during the season, as the NBA broke down which station/service games will be on for each day.
That doesn’t exactly clear things up entirely, though. For a game-by-game basis, the Lakers’ site itself tells you where games are being streamed.
But for a big-picture look heading into the season, here are all the places the Lakers will play games and how many times they’ll be on those platforms.
Note that this currently only totals up to 80 games as two games will be scheduled during the season after NBA Cup group play finishes.
Spectrum Sportsnet – 38 times
The most common place to find the Lakers this season remains the same in Spectrum Sportsnet. More often than not, the Lakers will be on Spectrum. In fact, in lots of cases when they are on other services, like ESPN, Prime Video or Peacock, they’ll also be on Spectrum, too.
The number 38 represents the number of times they’ll exclusively be on Spectrum. So, if you’re a Lakers fan in LA, getting Spectrum probably remains one of the easiest ways to watch the team this season.
For fans not local to LA, League Pass is the only way to get Spectrum Sportsnet, but you’ll still see over half the games just by purchasing that.
ESPN/ABC – 13 times
The Lakers’ popularity, though, does mean that they’ll be a common fixture on the national broadcasts. ESPN will broadcast nearly a half-dozen games in 2024, including the Christmas Day showdown against the Rockets, before Saturday night and Sunday afternoon ABC games return with the conclusion of the NFL season.
The Lakers will play in those two time slots five times as well over the final two-and-a-half months of the season. They’ll also be a regular on ESPN’s Wednesday and Friday night broadcasts.
If you’re looking for the simplest way to watch all these games, ESPN did just launch a new streaming service.
NBC/Peacock – 11 times
One of the two new broadcasters this season will be NBC, who replace TNT’s coverage. They will take one of TNT’s regular nights on Tuesday while also broadcasting games on Sunday and Monday as well.
The Lakers will be on NBC and/or Peacock nearly a dozen times this season, including on opening night against the Warriors and the home game against the Celtics.
To watch these games, you’ll need to purchase a subscription to Peacock.
Amazon Prime Video – 10 times
Prime Video will also have a healthy amount of Lakers games in its first year as a broadcaster, too. The team’s rematch against Minnesota in their second game of the season, their trip to Boston and games against OKC and Golden State late in the year all will be on Prime.
They’ve been a partner with the NFL for quite some time, which means many people might already be familiar with them. While Peacock has games to start the week, Prime will have games to end the week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
At least their streams are good quality, if nothing else.
NBA TV – 8 times
While TNT may be out of the picture, NBA TV remains, where the Lakers play on eight occasions. This one is a bit different, though, for a couple of reasons.
First, no game is exclusively on NBA TV. All NBA TV games will also be on Spectrum Sportsnet as well. Secondly, getting NBA TV isn’t too difficult.
If you purchase League Pass, for example, you will have access to all NBA TV games. If you have cable, you also obviously likely have NBA TV. If you have YouTube TV, you have NBA TV.
You can purchase just NBA TV on the League Pass site, too (scroll to the bottom).
ESPN LA – 82 times
Lastly, if you’re an old school fan who wants to listen to the games or you’re a night-shift worker still hoping to keep up with the team, you can listen to the games on ESPN LA. The simplest way is through League Pass, where you can subscribe to League Pass Audio for $9.99, blackout-free.
That being said, though, ESPN LA can be found on a number of free websites and apps and will carry the games throughout the season. And Mychal Thompson is an absolute gem on those broadcasts, as fans saw during the preseason.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on BlueSky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
