The 2025 NBA playoffs are still going on, but NBCUniversal is already looking forward to resurrecting its broadcasts for the 2025-2026 season on NBC and Peacock. It’s been a long time since the network aired the league’s games — 23 years — and the media giant is launching a host of new features on its streaming service to bring you courtside action and player facts, the company announced during its Upfront event on Monday.
Following its rollout of special interactive features during the summer 2024 Olympics, Peacock will give basketball fans added functions to watch games from their living rooms or phones. Programming will officially kick off in October 2025 and include live coverage from NBA Sports (with Carmelo Anthony, Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford serving as analysts), an AI rendering of Jim Fagan’s voice and the return of John Tesh’s nostalgic Roundball Rock NBA on NBC theme song.
Peacock invited press members to preview its upcoming slate of features, designed to immerse viewers in each NBA event. Here’s what to know.
Read more: You Can Get Peacock Premium for Free if You Have Xfinity Internet, Spectrum or Instacart Plus
Peacock’s Instant Access and mobile highlights
This year, when fans open the Peacock app during the NBA season, its Instant Access feature will show live game footage on the home screen, including current in-game stats for players. You’ll see which teams are facing off, and you can press play to jump right into the livestream.
If you’re streaming the NBA on mobile, you can scroll down to a dedicated row that shows highlights and action for active matchups or past games. Highlight clips for live games will have the option to click to watch in real time. Stream all the highlights in a vertical feed as if you’re in your favorite social media app.
Those who’d rather watch on the TV app can click «key plays» to keep up with any missed moments from a game, with the ability to catch up before diving into the live feed.
New Performance View feature
When I watched the demo for Peacock’s performance view feature, it looked like a combination of a live game and video game-like animations showing flaming basketballs on their way to the hoop and name labels for players.
John Jelley, SVP of product and user experience for global streaming, explained the player-focused feature shows which players are all-stars and which «have a hot hand.» A chart under the live action updates during each game displays where everyone is on the court.
Additionally, this chart «highlights the three-point shooting percentage drift inside, and it shifts the tracking performance in the paint and layered right onto the court itself. Augmented reality reveals the percentage chance of making a shot from that exact spot, calculated in real time,» said Jelley. Viewers will be able to see the odds of a shot — or pass — going well. For example, it will show a 37% chance of a player hitting a three-pointer from wherever he’s standing. Peacock will work to update and tweak the feature once the season begins.
Interactive scorecard for your NBA predictions
In what Peacock has dubbed bingo-style, the rollout of an optional, interactive scorecard will pop up on your TV screen, prompting you to predict outcomes based on themes or teams. Fans can select a card, make their picks and track their progress (or lack of progress) as the game is streaming live on the platform. To crank things up, alerts will hit the screen letting you know about points scored and where you rank on the leaderboard with fellow fans.
Mobile users will also have access to the scorecard, and you can set yours up before gametime and open the app later to track things.
Go inside the arena with Courtside Live
Peacock’s Courtside Live feature will launch mid-season and is meant to make you feel like you’re inside the venue as you stream the game. In addition to viewing what’s happening on the court, you can see the camera cut to individual players, celebrities in the stands and other curated feeds. Game stats will also show on the screen, with everything in Courtside Live broadcasting on mobile as picture-in-picture streams.
Using the feature on TVs will display under Peacock’s multiview, so you can view four different angles — including the active game — and choose which feed you want to watch full-screen.
During the 2025-2026 NBA season, Peacock will air 100 regular-season matchups and 40 playoff games, with Monday night games being exclusive to the streamer.
