Kraken Games Go Free: What the New Broadcast Deal Actually Saves You
No new streaming bill required: 77 Kraken games land on antenna TV and Prime Video next season, with only 7 games needing a separate ESPN or TNT subscription.
The headline number: $0 extra
The Seattle Kraken have locked in their broadcast plan for the 2026–27 season, and the bottom line for fans is simple: you likely won’t need to pay for a new service to watch. Of the team’s 84 regular-season games, 77 will air through the team’s own Kraken Hockey Network, distributed two ways, free over-the-air television and live streaming on Amazon Prime Video, at no added cost for existing Prime members. Only the remaining seven games, which air nationally on ESPN or TNT Sports, require access outside that setup.
That’s a meaningful shift from the regional sports network model that’s dominated hockey and baseball broadcasts for years, where fans often had to pay for a specific cable package or a pricey streaming add-on just to watch their local team.
Who actually pays here
If you already subscribe to Amazon Prime, $14.99 a month or $139 a year for the standard plan, this costs you nothing extra. The 77 regional games are folded into that existing membership across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. If you don’t have Prime, signing up specifically for hockey means absorbing that $139 annual cost, though you’d also get Prime’s shipping and other perks bundled in.
The over-the-air option is cheaper still. A basic antenna typically runs $20 to $50 as a one-time purchase, with no recurring fee at all. Games will broadcast through local affiliates of TEGNA, Gray Media, Cox Media and Morgan Murphy Media stations across the Pacific Northwest.
The seven nationally broadcast games are the wrinkle. Those air on ESPN and TNT Sports, which means fans need either a traditional cable/satellite package, a live TV streaming bundle like Fubo or Hulu + Live TV, or in some cases an ESPN direct-to-consumer subscription to catch those specific matchups.
The bigger pattern: Amazon’s local sports push
This isn’t a one-off. Amazon has been steadily expanding into local NHL streaming, recently taking over local distribution for six more teams, the Hurricanes, Ducks, Blue Jackets, Stars, Wild and Blues. For consumers, that trend matters because it signals fewer standalone regional sports network subscriptions and more games rolled into a service many households already pay for. Whether that’s a net win depends on whether you already have Prime for other reasons, or whether hockey becomes the reason you sign up.
What to do about it
If you’re a Kraken fan and already pay for Prime, do nothing, just tune in starting with the October 1 season opener against the Calgary Flames. If you don’t subscribe to Prime and don’t want to, an antenna is the cheapest path to the same 77 games, with the added benefit of pairing it with a DVR device like Tablo if you want to record and rewatch. Check antenna reception in your specific market before buying, since over-the-air signal strength varies by location. For the seven nationally televised games, decide in advance whether it’s worth keeping or adding a live TV streaming subscription just for those dates, or whether watching highlights afterward is good enough. Either way, this is one of the rare sports broadcast shifts where the deal genuinely reduces what most fans have to pay, rather than adding another line to the monthly bill.