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 comprises of twenty nine teams from North America and has one team from Canada. It is also a part of the USAB, which in turn is regarded as the National Governing Body for basketball by the International Basketball Federation. Created in 1946, in Ny city, NAB was in fact called 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 from the 1980s when the “Magic” Johnson era began. Attracting more sports fans with their already expanding database, NBA began growing 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 growing fascination with the league was further propelled when Michael Jordan joined the Chicago Bulls back 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 as well as the Toronto Raptors with their profile. Later, the Vancouver Grizzlies were transferred 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 with the NBA carrying news regarding the games as well as the players.
The “NBA on ESPN” journey began in 1983 as soon as 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 the holidays.
ESPN also airs one Conference Final each year which is a part of the NBAs strategy to make them very popular on cable TV. 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 to the NBA games is TNT. TNT airs most of the major NBA games on the other week nights trying to take up a chunk of ESPNs ratings. It is mostly during the playoffs and the Conference Finals that TBNT garners higher ratings. However, the standard season ratings are almost the same with both sports news providers.