NBA: Live Games & Scores Reviews

by Eduardo Gilmore

I use NBA to access my league pass, which is garbage. You can’t use a VPN, and they are admittedly selling your information to 3rd parties. You can’t ask this app to stop selling your information—instead they instruct you to contact every single one of their “partners” separately (which is many) and I guess ask them to stop buying your information? And even if you buy league pass, you can’t watch games that are on this app TV or blacked out because of local broadcasts. So if you actually want to watch all of your teams’ games, you have to pay for cable, pay for this app TV, and league pass. If they were smart, they would make this whole thing simpler for the people they are asking to pay them.

UPDATE: the “developer response” or lack thereof only reinforces my criticisms. They’re selling your email address to third parties who will spam you. this app TV blackouts have nothing to do with local broadcasting contracts. One thing you can do to make NBA better (aside from selling my information) is make it work with airplay—any time I try to AirPlay, it takes me dozens of tries before it actually works. Other apps are airplaying, but when I try with NBA, it acts like it’s doing something and then just goes back to the Home Screen after a few seconds. After 20 minutes or so of repeatedly trying, you might get lucky and get it to work.

by Primetimeprim

I pay for league pass though my cable provider and year after year I have issues with NBA . If I want to watch any game this season I have to press the watch button over 6 times before it will let me watch the game. I am greeted with an error message that says the video can not be played. I pay through my provider because I usually watch at home but traveling with NBA I may as well not try. I have friends that pay this app direct and they have no issues with NBA at all. I wonder why? It’s beyond frustrating that NBA or their ecosystem hasn’t been more well integrated for those who use a cable provider. You are still getting paid please fix this. It’s Beyond frustrating especially for a loyal consumer of your product. I can imagine there are quite a few others with my issue. This would mark the 4 year with the same issue. Also I understand that you have blackout issues but is there no way to integrate local network sign in so that I don’t have to leave league pass app?

by Tntawful

Living in a small town NBA is a total rip off. DO NOT PURCHASE!!! You will be subject to ridiculous blackout terms regardless. I paid for premium package at 279$ and can’t watch my team play if they are playing against the blazers, warriors or kings even though I’m over 5 hours away from all those teams by car. Local blackoout my left foot! Imagine them blackingnout the sizers, nets, Celtics and knocks if I lived in day jersey city. Tried to get a refund but as I paid through Appletv I cannot. Feel cheated and ripped off. Were I able to open a class action suit against rural bias I would, but alas we’re not all millionaires. this app is responsible regardless of what they claim. It’s their league. Their games. Their contracts. So unbelievably dissatisfied with this service. Contact me this app. You have my info. What a total rip off. Can’t watch my team in over 15% of their games even though I paid for “All games. All teams” If I could give zero stars I would.

by Kuwan

During game breaks the video player is locked to show commercials. You cannot pause, rewind, fast-forward or even STOP/EXIT the video player when commercials are playing.

For a “premium” video app this is unacceptable. Subscriptions cost anywhere from $18 a month to $40 a month and yet they lock the video player during commercials. It’s not locked when watching the actual games, which is what you’re paying a premium price for. But during commercials you can’t even close the video player to check scores, view highlights, or change games. I consider this broken.

this app, if you want to force people to watch commercials then give it away for free. If you want to charge a premium price to watch this app games then you should offer a premium experience — which means that users can do whatever they want during commercial breaks. You can’t have it both ways.

by The Luke24

I purchased league pass during preseason. Was only able to watch live games. If I was to go back and watch an old game audio was two to four plays ahead of game play was able to watch a game for about 10 minutes then a video playback error pops up. Went to to talk to live tech support no one was available. I sent an email for help no response. I thought to myself this issue will get taken care during regular season. Big shock! I was wrong. Regular season starts and I finally was able to talk to a live person on tech support. He wasn’t able to help me. I had to send another email and then I received a response. They still can’t fix the problem. This has been going on since November! When I ask for compensation they tell that can’t because I purchased the league pass through iTunes. When I talk to iTunes about guess what happens? That’s right they tell me it’s on this app league pass since they are the developers. Go back to the league pass “We are unable to give compensation or a refund since you purchased this app league pass through iTunes”. They don’t care. I have talked to 8 different people about my situation and are asked the same questions when a new person “try’s” to help me. Also when I ask a question does it get answered. Nope! DO NOT GET LEAGUE PASS THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING!!!!!

by 1Millhouse

Congratulations! This has to be a genius level scam. You charge a subscription fee and then block all of my teams games. Wow... just wow! The amazing team that developed NBA must have had some crazy brainstorming sessions. “Hmm... what can we do to drive away our paying customer base. Let’s release an app that doesn’t work properly. Yup that should do the trick!” Great job you guys. Give yourselves a pat on the back because this fantastic new update is causing me to cancel my this app league pass subscription. You disabled the ability to use a VPN and for some dumb reason you also disabled the mirror/airplay function. Who the heck wants to watch a game on their phone after paying for a premium subscription. If I’m paying for the service I should have the option to either watch on my phone or on my tv. But none of that matters because now that I can’t use a VPN, I can no longer watch home or away games because they are all blacked out. So what’s the point in paying for a service that you blocked all access to. The answer is none.

by Faub0831

I hate that there’s no search or way to find players other than scrolling through the entire list of this app players. How about at least an a-b-c on the right side? Especially during trade season, I want to look up players quickly & easily as they are added to my teams. I also hate the new player profile. I want to see height, weight, age, previous/college team, season stats on the first page, not click another button & then hunt through a bio to pick out what I was wondering. I’ll just google players in that case. The old layout was nearly perfect for looking up players. Stick with what works. I don’t like the new look of the standings, too much white space & not much to separate headings from teams plus so spread out. I’d like to see as many teams as possible on one screen. It’s the little things. Tighten it up. Maybe one tab for each conference instead of having to scroll through the eastern conference to get to the western.

by Kcwerkme

I should preface this review by saying that I use NBA primarily as a way to look up player stats and watch league pass. I would assume that this is the case with most people, and that is why I am only going to talk primarily about those two features. This used to be a really great app.... I say used to be because the developers took everything that made the old app good (player profile page, ease of use, clean look, etc) and completely screwed it up. The player profile page used to be great. It had all the important stats, age, height, alma mater, etc. Now it’s a 1 inch line of useless junk followed by a bunch of spammy looking ads and videos all of which is showcased on an ugly white background that looks like something you would have considered second rate back in 2004... like first of all, after charging 200$ a pop for league pass that only has half the games on it, getting $2.66 billion a year from tnt, and charging ungodly amounts for in person tickets, I know there’s no way you needed to destroy NBA just to sneak in a couple ad spots. NOBODY HAD ANY PROBLEMS WITH THE OLD APP...

by Casey Adamo

Have tried to watch multiple games from NBA on my mobile and from NBA on Apple TV. Neither work consistently. Have taken the time to confirm login details, uninstall, reinstall, confirm internet connection. Everything setup correctly, just poor low quality apps. In the middle of the game, they will cut to adds, skip around and have unwatchable playback. I have never been able to watch an entire live game with NBA working correctly and it always causes me to just turn it off. Have had this happen multiple times now and finally upset enough to leave a negative review because I’ve had such a bad experience. Super disappointing specifically when it is extremely hard to justify the expense. Will never make this mistake again and will look into paying for NBC Sports app or any other alternative in the future. Buyer beware, these apps don’t work and you can’t watch the games in real time without issues.

Update 4/5/21 - Submitted request to troubleshoot issues per comment to response. Will report back if anything comes of it.

by Pappleby

I am extremely disappointed with this app league pass. I paid $120 so that I could watch the Warriors games this season and I have been blocked from watching a large amount of them so far. When I made the decision to subscribe to this app league pass I calculated how many warriors games I would be able to watch outside of the ones aired on tnt, ESPN, this app tv etc. Since paying for the subscription though, the this app has decided to change many of the games to this app TV after the fact. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to watch these games. If there was a way to rent a single game, I would pay for it. I am not going to subscribe to this app Tv in addition to league pass, that is ridiculous. Why wouldn’t this app tv be available for league pass subscribers?? I don’t even know how to watch this app TV games as there is no app for it and they are not available on the this app app. I have been a subscriber to league pass for a number of years but this year is unacceptable how many games they have changed after the fact to this app TV. There has been at least six changed so far. I don’t see myself subscribing again in the future if the games I paid for are not available whenever the league decides.

by Nvjdsjhjhgrjvmshskbh

The amount of ads in NBA is insane. I’m a paying customer. Show me ads during commercial breaks. Also known as ad breaks. I just sat through a 90 second ad to begin a stream and then a 120 second ad just to make the screen bigger. During play. There should not be ads during play EVER. There should not be ads when switching between games. I paid to watch the games.

Generally, it is ludicrous that NBA only works on landscape and the different tabs are garbage. Like when I open NBA and it’s just garbage or when I go to the “watch” tab and it’s also garbage. Then I mercifully realize I have to go to “games” in order to WATCH the games I paid for, AFTER ADS.

I used the NHL app last year and now ESPN and those apps deliver programming on demand without interrupting or ad-walling during play. And work vertically. NBA experience is terrible and I feel it unlikely I will be a repeat customer.

by Nick Name //786

I usually don’t write a review for any app but I’ve had a continuous struggle with NBA for a while with two main things that began to bother me. Most importantly watching games through league pass on NBA is a big struggle as it works about 20% of the time while the other times it says the video is unavailable. Keep in mind this isn’t caused by blackouts as it gives the message for every game, even NBATV. I find that I have to try again in about 20 minutes or keep refreshing NBA until it works. Secondly searching for players stats simple doesn’t exist. The only efficient way to find a player is to filter by team and select them. I was bewildered by this as it seems like a pretty easy thing to add that was in past versions of NBA . Hopefully Lebron can complain about these two things and get a fix going.

by N183947

There are constant app-specific ads that block live game action on League Pass. Every time you start watching a game, 30-75 seconds of ads. Switch feeds? More ads. Just watching the game? Don’t worry, NBA will leave the game to show you a 30-second ad while your team is making a run.

Plus, there are lots of technical issues that interrupt your feed, and you have to watch more ads every time you restart it. I just spent 10 minutes trying to cast to my TV with airplay. Not only did it never work, but I spent about 7 of those 10 minutes with ads playing instead of basketball.

I’m paying for the ability to watch this app games, but NBA is preempting live game action in favor of an ad. That would be unacceptable even for a free, ad-supported service. It is beyond the pale for a paid service.

by Santos93

Specifically the player profiles. There should be no reason why I click on a player’s name to find out their info and only their picture and one small line of their current stats shows up and the rest is a random ad + huge list of random this app videos. I liked the old way where it gave you all of their information: height, age, DOB, school, career stats + current stats. etc. I have to click on Advanced Stats, then find their “Profile”. There is nothing “Advanced Stat” about their height and DOB. I should be able to see that information on the first page. I understand putting their advanced stats on a separate page, but there shouldn’t be a 1 inch section dedicated to their whole profile and the rest is an ad and videos . The second biggest thing is searching for a player. Scrolling through an entire list of 400+ this app players is exhausting.

by Code 356

More recently, I have noticed a problem with NBA, where it doesn't send me any notifications at all. No score updates or anything. I keep going to settings and turning on all possible notifications, but then they automatically turn off the moment I exit NBA . I know this because if I exit NBA and go back on again, and go back to settings, notifications show up as being turned off again, despite me having turned it on just moments ago. This is a big and annoying problem that needs to be fixed ASAP.

Update: I sent this review a few days ago, and I tried the solution that the Developer Response gave me, which was to delete NBA and reinstall it. It didn't work. The notifications still automatically turn off every time I exit NBA .

by Not Taken Oops Yes It Is

I feel like the devs for NBA have grand ideas that are either being bottlenecked or overridden by execs. I like the new UI, but it seems like it’s trying to glitz and glamor us when all we really want is access to data and analytics. The single item I used the most, written recaps of each game published by the Associated Press every night a few hours after the games end, seems to be missing in favor of video recaps. Call me a boomer but I don’t want to watch a video to know how a game unfolded. If I want to see a play or an injury or a highlight, I’ll go look for it elsewhere in NBA . Overall, NBA performs admirably on my iPhone XS, and seems to be less buggy overall, but there are clear issues that need to be addressed (why do I have to scroll through the entire league of players to access Westbrook’s stats?) and a more cohesive index of the plethora of content needs to be readily available on start-up. And PLEASE tell me whoever was responsible for copy-pasting the AP recaps wasn’t fired or deemed unnecessary; I’m not kidding when I say those recaps were 90% of the reason I open NBA every morning. :/

by #TheComeback

Hear me out, this new update is mostly good. The Stories feature is really nifty, the videos play without trouble, and it’s easy to access content and interviews from the league. But the thing I used the old app for the most was checking box scores of games the next morning. And that’s my issue.

This is my main complaint: When looking at the box scores, I find it really difficult to digest any of the stats. There is a ton of white space spreading everything apart, making it impossible to get a full box score without scrolling and swiping multiple times. There are also no separation lines drawn between categories or players. The box score viewer is clunky, I’ve accidentally swiped it down and hidden it a dozen times when I meant to swipe right to see stats like BLK and FGA. The old box scores seemed to be sorted by position, but now it’s sorted by minutes played. That tends to confuse my brain while quickly flipping through the games to see how players did. I would like an option to choose how to sort. I’d like to see the box score feature become more streamlined and like the old app in that manner.

Overall, it’s a great app. I hope this feedback can be used.

by Keyvon23

There are some improvements in the new design. There are some big downgrades too. Most of the reviews have covered the same flaws I have noticed. The one thing I wish you guys would bring back is the paid version. You used to be able to pay 10 bucks to remove ads and get audio to the games. Even if it was 10 bucks to remove ads I would do that in a heart beat. Ads makes the user experience pretty poor and pretty much botch the ux designers efforts to make a nice app. Also instead of overhauling NBA every couple of years why don’t you just make the improvements everyone is asking for. I wouldn’t be hard to go through and pick out all the features everyone is requesting. Isn’t NBA for US anyway? Not everything is negative, so thanks. Please listen.

by Jeeniebeans

NBA is interesting and it keeps me updated with games and stats and extra features which is really cool but I feel like they could make it more fun and you could do stuff like watch games without needing to get a feature and needing to sign in which they want your password to your gmail,I am going to need to check on that with my mom. I love the this app and I would love to be part of the fam and the stuff that I am able to do is most of the stuff on NBA and it is really interesting. I am a new fan of the this app so I think I heard in some of these reviews that there was a classic version that was a little better so maybe you could add some of the things to this version that there was in the last version

by OGGGGG5

I really like the new layout. I think it looks more polished/modern and runs smoother. I haven’t personally had any of the problems/errors so far that others have mentioned. Everything’s working as it should for me and I enjoy it.

The only thing I’m not a big a fan of is the new lead tracker graphic for the games. I like that you can now scroll on it to find the specific plays but I wish that you could also just click on the graphic itself and it show a bigger graphic more similar to the old version.

This version doesn’t have the grid lines with the numbers to really show how much a team is leading by. It also doesn’t say what the biggest lead was or how many lead changes and ties there were.

In my opinion, it just doesn’t convey the match up between the teams as well as the old app’s “match up” tab did which is a bit disappointing since I really enjoyed viewing that tab every game. I would like to see that aspect get some improvements but overall this seems like a good app

by Rocchenroll

Non carica lo streaming per le partite live..speriamo in un aggiornamento prima dell'inizio della regoular season

by Rafa Nadav

For an app that takes so much money I expect more