NBA League Pass: Excellent, But Incomplete
NBA League Pass is the official way to stream out-of-market NBA games over the internet. The 2026 price is $99.99 per season for the basic tier and $149.99 for the premium tier. The catalogue includes every out-of-market regular season game in HD, plus archived games dating back several seasons.
The catch is the word “out-of-market.” League Pass blacks out games featuring your local team when those games are broadcast by a local Regional Sports Network (RSN). So a Lakers fan in Los Angeles cannot watch Lakers games on League Pass — they need Spectrum SportsNet, which is bundled into Spectrum cable or available as a $20/month standalone add-on.
The Local Blackout Problem
Local blackouts are the single biggest frustration for League Pass subscribers. The list of affected fans is enormous: Lakers fans, Clippers fans, Knicks fans, Nets fans, Warriors fans, Celtics fans, Bulls fans, Heat fans — basically any fan living in the same media market as their favourite team.
The standard workarounds are VPNs (technically against League Pass terms of service), an antenna for local broadcasts (works for the few nationally-televised games), or the local RSN as a separate subscription. None of these are clean solutions.
The IPTV Approach
A modern IPTV service like Channel Moa takes a different approach. Rather than trying to navigate the league-by-league rights map, it carries the actual broadcast networks (TNT, ESPN, ABC, NBA TV) plus the major Regional Sports Networks (Spectrum SportsNet, MSG, YES, NBC Sports Bay Area, Bally Sports affiliates, AT&T SportsNet) and international NBA broadcasters. The result is something close to “every NBA game on every night” without the blackout map.
For fans who care about a specific team, this matters enormously. A Celtics fan in Boston can watch every game on NBC Sports Boston. A Warriors fan in San Francisco can watch every game on NBC Sports Bay Area. A Mavericks fan in Dallas can watch every game on Bally Sports Southwest. The local team is no longer a blacked-out frustration — it is the easiest game to find.
The TNT and ESPN Marquee Games
The nationally-televised marquee games on TNT (Tuesday and Thursday) and ESPN (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) are the most-watched NBA broadcasts of the week. These are not blacked out anywhere — you can watch them on cable, on a streaming service that carries the network, or on Channel Moa.
NBA TV carries a weekly “NBA TV Game of the Night” plus extensive non-game programming (Top 10 plays, GameTime, Open Court). For NBA junkies who want the full ecosystem, NBA TV is hard to live without. Channel Moa includes NBA TV in every plan.
NBA Playoff and Finals Coverage
NBA Playoff games and the Finals run on ESPN, ABC and TNT exclusively. There are no blackouts during the playoffs, so any subscription that carries these three networks covers every playoff game from the first round through the Finals. Channel Moa carries all three.
The Cost Math
The League Pass + local RSN combination runs around $250 to $350 per season depending on your team and city. A full year of Channel Moa is $88 (Champion plan) or $120 for 24 months (All-Star plan). The math is dramatic, and Channel Moa adds the NFL Sunday slate, MLB, NHL, college football and PPV access on top of the NBA coverage.
For a household that watches more than one sport, the value gap widens further. League Pass covers exactly one sport. Channel Moa covers every American major league plus international content.
The Setup Is Genuinely Easy
The barrier to switching is lower than most people expect. A Firestick is $40, the Channel Moa app installs in under 5 minutes via the Downloader code, and the sign-in is a username and password. Once you are in, the EPG shows every NBA game on every channel in the same view. Searching for a team name pulls up the next available game instantly.
The Bottom Line for NBA Fans
League Pass is great for what it covers, but the local blackout map and the missing RSN access leave a significant gap for any fan of a specific team. A modern IPTV service like Channel Moa fills that gap by carrying the actual broadcast networks rather than navigating league rights deals.
For NBA-only viewers, League Pass plus an RSN is still a reasonable choice. For sports-heavy households or fans who follow multiple sports, the IPTV route is cheaper, more comprehensive and removes the blackout headache entirely.