ESPN as the tv partner of nba to provide sports news.
The National basketball Association is North Americas professional basketball league and it is one of the major professional sports leagues of North America. The NBA consists of twenty nine teams from North America and contains one team from Canada http://bettzone.com. It is also a member of the USAB, which is regarded as the National Governing Body for basketball by the International Basketball Federation. Founded in 1946, in New York City, NAB was in fact named the Basketball Association of America. The title changed post their merger with the National Basketball League in 1949.
NBA commenced making major sports news in the 1980s as soon as the “Magic” Johnson era began. Bringing in more sports fans to their already expanding database, NBA began expanding by adding more franchisees. By having the Dallas Mavericks the NBA had a total to 23 teams in their portfolio with the Lakers being led by Magic Johnson.
The growing interest in the league was further propelled when Michael Jordan joined the Chicago Bulls in 1984. The NBA fever continued to elevate plus more and even more cities began demanding teams of their own. It was in 1995 that NBA expanded into Canada introducing the Vancouver Grizzlies and the Toronto Raptors with their profile. Later, the Vancouver Grizzlies were transferred to Memphis making the Toronto Grizzlies the only team from Canada. The 90s had also been a landmark in NBA history as in 1996, NBA created the first womens league with the National Womens Basketball Association.
The NBA season begins from the first week of November and has a total of 82 games played by each team with playoffs starting in the month of April. ESPN is among the television partners with the NBA carrying news regarding the games as well as the players.
The “NBA on ESPN” journey began in 1983 when the NBA games were offered by ESPN through their televised cable network. ESPN continued the NBA sports news broadcasting till 1984. They’ve again started off the NBA games through the 2003 season. ABC Sports aired the games from 2003 until 2006 as “NBA on ABC” till it was taken by ESPN on ABC. ESPN on ABC is the sports brand under the ABC umbrella used to broadcast various sporting events.
NBA games can be viewed on ESPN of Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. NBA Special Edition program is telecast for the days when ESPN has not aired a game or for the holidays.
ESPN in addition airs one Conference Final each year which is a section of the NBAs strategy to make them more popular on cable television. The playoffs are telecast on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Other than this ESPN also broadcasts the NBA Draft Lottery and the NBA Draft.
ESPNs main competitor for the NBA games is TNT. TNT airs the vast majority of major NBA games on the other week nights trying to take up a chunk of ESPNs ratings. It is mostly during the playoffs as well as the Conference Finals that TBNT garners higher ratings. However, the regular season ratings are almost identical with both the sports news providers.