Watching the NBA isn't as simple and straightforward as it once was. We are in the first year of the NBA's new media deal, which has had games showing up on different networks and streaming services this season and into the playoffs. With some games streaming on Prime Video and Peacock and others being broadcast on ABC, NBC and ESPN, it's no longer as easy as flipping between a couple of channels to find a game.
For example, if you turned on your TV this week to watch the play-in tournament, you would not have found any of the games on your regular cable, satellite or live TV streaming service. Instead, you would have needed to know how to navigate your way to Prime Video, which is showing every play-in game.
Xfinity is trying to make watching NBA basketball feel less fragmented and has employed NBA All-Star Tyrese Maxey as an Xfinity NBA ambassador in this effort.Â
I interviewed Maxey about working with Xfinity, growing up in Dallas and which sports he follows besides basketball. I also spoke with Vito Forlenza, vice president of sports entertainment at Comcast, about what Xfinity is doing to make it less of a chore for fans to watch the 2026 NBA playoffs.
Xfinity Sports Zone puts the NBA all in one place
Comcast wants its Xfinity platform to act as a sports hub for its subscribers. Similar to what it did for the Winter Olympics earlier this year, it has set up an Xfinity Sports Zone on that pulls together in one place all of the live and upcoming games for each day of the NBA playoffs. But where Comcast had exclusive rights for the Olympics on NBC and Peacock, it shares NBA rights with Disney (ABC/ESPN) and Amazon (Prime Video). On Xfinity's Sports Zone, you'll not only find the NBA playoff games being broadcast on NBC and Peacock, but you'll also see which games are being shown on ABC, ESPN and Prime Video.
However, you'll need a subscription separate from Xfinity to watch games on Prime Video, but Xfinity displays the day's full lineup, no matter the channel or streaming service.
"The sports landscape is so fragmented, and the NBA with this new deal takes that to another level," Forlenza told me. "How do we make sure that if you are an NBA fan, it's not work for you?"
With Xfinity's NBA Sports Zone, fans will be able to see which games are on which platforms and can customize their view by picking a favorite team. In addition to live and upcoming games, Xfinity's hub will feature game full-game highlights and NBA podcasts along with documentaries, shows, clips and other NBA content on ESPN, NBA TV and elsewhere.
Xfinity's NBA Sports Zone puts all things pro basketball in one place.
Fan View and Multiview
Once you start watching a game on Xfinity, there's a panel called Fan View that lets you keep an eye on scores from around the league and check the stats for the game you're watching. Fan View is also helpful to Xfinity because it keeps you staring at your TV screen rather than your phone to check scores and stats, so you don't end up scrolling through Instagram and TikTok instead of watching the game.
Fan View displays live scores, stats, standings and odds off to the side, allowing you to keep watching the game. The panel slides out from the right side of your TV screen and lets you navigate up and down and left and right with your remote control. "We've taken patterns that exist on mobile that everybody is familiar with and put them on the set-top box," Forlenza said.
Xfinity's Fan View panel lets you peek at scores, stats and standings and customize your mulitview quad box.
Fan View also lets you set up your own, personalized multiview. Many streaming services offer a customizable multiview that lets you watch up to four games at once in a two-by-two grid, but Xfinity's multiview offers both the quad-box grid, which it calls Tile view, and a Spotlight view that prioritizes one of the four windows. In Spotlight, you can put the game you're most interested in in a larger window on the left, with three smaller windows stacked on the right. And even in Spotlight view, you can move the audio to any of the four games.
Maxey likes the ease of Xfinity's multiview, telling me, "They bring everything into one place and make it extremely easy. You can watch multiple [games] in the four squares."
Multiview lets you choose games from any channel in your Xfinity lineup, but it won't let you include games on Peacock or Prime Video.
In the Spotlight View, Xfinity's multiview lets you prioritize one game above the other three.
What's in Tyrese Maxey's multiview?
When he's off the court, Maxey said, "I watch basketball all day, every day." Beyond basketball, he's a huge sports fan in general and uses multiview to watch everything from golf to boxing. Baseball rarely makes it into the grid, however, because he prefers going to the ballpark and taking in the national pastime in person. I agree with this take; there are few things in life more relaxing and enjoyable than spending a summer night at a baseball game.
The Dallas native didn't grow up a fan of the hometown Mavericks but gravitated toward certain players, starting first with Dwyane Wade and another Hall of Fame point guard in Allen Iverson. After Iverson retired, Maxey became a fan of Kyrie Irving and now plays against the nine-time All-Star.
Multiview is useful during the NBA playoffs, so you can watch the NBA playoffs this spring alongside the NHL playoffs, the French Open, the PGA Championship, the WNBA and other sports. It'll also come in handy for the World Cup this summer, but it really earns its keep on Sundays during the NFL season when there are so many games on at once.
In the fall, Maxey likes to watch football, and you can bet that the Dallas Cowboys are prominent in his multiview. "I'm a Cowboys fan by default," Maxey said. "If you're from Dallas, you gotta be a Cowboys fan."
