Amazon’s Prime Video has technically been a WNBA broadcast partner since 2021, airing the championship game for the league’s Commissioner’s Cup in-season tournament and select regular-season games. But as part of a new, expanded 11-year broadcast rights deal with the NBA and the WNBA, the streamer is airing 31 national games and portions of the postseason.
This week, Prime Video announced its new WNBA broadcast talent roster, which will be led by a top announce team of Michael Grady and Candace Parker.
On game coverage, Grady and Parker will be flanked by play-by-play announcers Lisa Byington and Mike Watts as well as game analysts Kara Lawson and LaChina Robinson. Hall of Famer Cynthia Cooper will rotate as an analyst for games and in the studio.
Byington is the lead announcer on local Milwaukee Bucks broadcasts, while Lawson, a former star point guard in the WNBA and now the head women’s basketball coach at Duke, returns to broadcasting after a previous stint with ESPN. Robinson will also work as an analyst for NBC Sports’ WNBA coverage this season. And Watts comes over from his work on Prime’s NWSL coverage.
In the studio, Cooper and Parker will be joined by several other recognizable names from throughout the league’s history. Prime announced that Hall of Famers Teresa Weatherspoon and Swin Cash, Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach Lindsey Harding, and 12-year veteran guard Tamera “Ty” Young will contribute to studio coverage. Allie Clifton, who hosts studio coverage on Spectrum SportsNet Lakers broadcasts and works as a game reporter for NBA on Prime games, will anchor WNBA studio coverage for the streamer.
Reporters JayDee Dyer, Kayla Grey and Morgan Regan round out the rosters as courtside reporters.
Prime Video will air one first-round series each year as well as seven semifinal series and three WNBA Finals over the span of its 11-year deal with the league. Amazon’s first Finals will come in 2028, according to Sports Business Journal‘s Richard Deitsch.
The WNBA season tips off on May 8.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.