The National basketball Association is North Americas professional basketball league and is one of the main professional sports leagues of North America. The NBA comprises of 29 teams from North America and contains 1 team from Canada. It is also a member of the USAB bettclass-com, which is recognized as the National Governing Body for basketball by the International Basketball Federation. Founded in 1946, in Ny city, NAB was in fact named the Basketball Association of America. The name changed post their merger together with the National Basketball League in 1949.
NBA began making major sports news in the 1980s when the “Magic” Johnson era began. Bringing in additional sports fans with their already expanding database, NBA began growing with the addition of more franchisees. With the addition of the Dallas Mavericks the NBA had a total to 23 teams in their portfolio with the Lakers being led by Magic Johnson.
The growing fascination with the league was further propelled when Michael Jordan joined the Chicago Bulls back in 1984. The NBA fever continued to rise plus more and 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 moved to Memphis making the Toronto Grizzlies the sole 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 in the 1st week of November and possesses an overall total of 82 games played by each team with playoffs beginning in the month of April. ESPN is among the television partners for the NBA carrying news in connection with 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 have 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 sports activities.
NBA games can be seen on ESPN of Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. NBA Exclusive edition program is telecast for the days when ESPN hasn’t aired a game or for the holidays.
ESPN in addition airs one Conference Final each year that is a section of the NBAs tactic to make them more popular on cable television. The playoffs are telecast on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Apart from this ESPN also broadcasts the NBA Draft Lottery as well as the NBA Draft.
ESPNs principal competition for the NBA games is TNT. TNT airs most of the major NBA games on the other week nights looking 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 standard season ratings are almost the same with both the sports news providers.