The Charlotte Hornets have launched a direct-to-consumer streaming app powered by DAZN for the 2026-27 season, marking the 10th NBA team to partner with the platform. The service offers multiple subscription tiers and includes production support from the NBA's in-house broadcast arm, complementing the team's existing linear broadcast deal with Cox Media Group.
This deal signals a shift toward hybrid local distribution where teams bifurcate linear and digital rights rather than relying on a single RSN partner. By securing the Hornets and nine other teams, DAZN has established a significant footprint that positions the company as a primary contender for the NBA’s planned centralized streaming hub in 2027. The inclusion of an exit clause in these contracts suggests the league is maintaining flexibility to aggregate these local rights into a unified national product. Watch for whether the remaining former Main Street Sports Group teams adopt this non-exclusive digital model before the season tip-off.
DAZN has rapidly assembled the largest portfolio of NBA local streaming rights among any single platform. The Hornets deal brings the total to 10 teams, and DAZN signed the Memphis Grizzlies to a similar direct-to-consumer streaming agreement in August 2026, making Memphis the ninth team on the platform before Charlotte joined. The company's NBA footprint now spans markets from Milwaukee to Phoenix, and DAZN reported that its NBA local streaming subscriptions exceeded 1.2 million paid accounts across all partner teams by the end of the 2025-26 season, a figure that positions the platform as a credible alternative to traditional regional sports networks for local basketball distribution.
The business model behind these deals reflects a broader restructuring of NBA local media rights following the collapse of the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy proceedings. The NBA and its Board of Governors approved a framework in March 2026 allowing teams to sell digital rights separately from linear broadcast agreements, which directly enabled the DAZN partnerships. Each contract reportedly includes an exit clause tied to the league's planned centralized streaming product for 2027, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver indicated in June 2026 that the league was evaluating a unified direct-to-consumer offering that could aggregate local rights into a single national package. That timeline pressure explains why DAZN is racing to lock in as many teams as possible before the league potentially consolidates those rights.
On the technical and competitive side, DAZN faces growing pressure from other platforms courting NBA teams for local streaming. Amazon Prime Video explored local NBA streaming rights as part of its expanded league package announced in 2025, though no team-level deals have materialized publicly. Meanwhile, the NBA's in-house production arm, NBA Media Ventures, has scaled its broadcast operations to support 14 teams with full production capabilities as of the 2026-27 season, up from eight teams the prior year. That production infrastructure is what enables teams like the Hornets to launch DAZN apps without building their own broadcast teams, lowering the barrier to entry for direct-to-consumer distribution across the league.
The Charlotte Hornets are launching a direct-to-consumer streaming app via DAZN for the 2026-27 season. Priced at $19.99 monthly, this partnership allows the team to bifurcate their digital and linear rights. This move highlights a growing trend of NBA teams adopting hybrid distribution models ahead of potential league-wide centralized streaming plans.
The monthly subscription pass for the Charlotte Hornets DAZN app is $19.99. There is also an ultimate season pass available for $139.99, which includes five concurrent streams.
The NBA's in-house broadcast arm is responsible for handling production for both the DAZN digital streams and the linear broadcasts aired on Cox Media Group.
The Charlotte Hornets are the 10th NBA team to join the DAZN platform. DAZN now controls local digital rights for one-third of the NBA, including teams like the Knicks, Nets, and Grizzlies.
The inclusion of an exit clause suggests that the NBA is maintaining flexibility to potentially aggregate these local digital rights into a unified national streaming product in the future.
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