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 has 1 team from Canada. It is also a member of the USAB, which is recognized as the National Governing Body for basketball by the International Basketball Federation. Created in 1946, in Ny city, NAB was initially 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 as soon as the “Magic” Johnson era began. Attracting more sports fans with their already expanding database, NBA began expanding with the addition of more franchisees. By having the Dallas Mavericks the NBA had a total to 23 teams inside their portfolio together with the Lakers being led by Magic Johnson.
The increasing interest in the league was further propelled when Michael Jordan joined the Chicago Bulls back in 1984. The NBA fever continued to elevate plus more and more cities began demanding teams of their own. It was in 1995 that NBA expanded into Canada adding the Vancouver Grizzlies and the Toronto Raptors to their profile. Later, the Vancouver Grizzlies were transferred to Memphis making the Toronto Grizzlies the sole team from Canada. The 90s was also 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 an overall total of 82 games played by each team with playoffs starting in the month of April. ESPN is one of the television partners with the NBA carrying news in connection with the games in addition to 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 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 hasn’t aired a game or the holidays.
ESPN in addition airs one Conference Final every year that is a part of the NBAs tactic to make sure they are very popular on cable TV. 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 main competition for the NBA games is TNT. TNT airs the vast majority of major NBA games on the other week nights trying to fill up a chunk of ESPNs ratings. It is mostly in 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.