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The National Basketball Association’s (NBA) schedule release demonstrates a clear intention from the North American basketball league to increase its overseas appeal as a TV product.
A record 48 games will air in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for the 2019/20 season, supplying a full slate of primetime fixtures to the regions on both Saturdays and Sundays for the first time.
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The NBA’s biggest European market is the UK, where it is entering the second year of a four-year broadcast contract with the pay-TV network Sky Sports in UK and Ireland.
Qatar-based subscription broadcaster BeIN Sports airs the NBA in France, the league’s second biggest European outpost which this season is hosting the a regular season game in Paris for the first time.
Domestically the league is also trying to make an effort to present national television games to the largest possible audience. Upon announcing its full match schedule, the NBA said that it has worked ‘closely’ with its teams and broadcast partners to arrange earlier start times for doubleheaders and to reduce the number of games running past midnight in the US.
They including 12 of WarnerMedia’s TNT’s 31 doubleheaders and 22 of ESPN’s 36 doubleheaders, which will tip off at 7.30pm and 10 pm or 7pm and 9.30pm (ET), and sees the number of doubleheaders played at 8pm and 10.30pm reduce by a combined 42 per cent compared to last season.
That dramatic shift is in part a response to lowered ratings suffered by the NBA last season, a rare stumble in the league’s recent growth. National NBA ratings were down 15 per cent last season on TNT, while Disney-owned ESPN fell by one per cent. Superstar LeBron James’s move from Cleveland to the Los Angeles Lakers, where his games often aired too late for East Coast viewers, was cited as reason for the downturn.
The National Basketball Association’s (NBA) schedule release demonstrates a clear intention from the North American basketball league to increase its overseas appeal as a TV product.
A record 48 games will air in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for the 2019/10 season, supplying a full slate of primetime fixtures to the regions on both Saturdays and Sundays for the first time.
The NBA’s biggest European market is the UK, where it is interesting the second year of a four-year broadcast contract with the pay-TV network Sky Sports in UK and Ireland.
Qatar-based subscription broadcaster BeIN Sports airs the NBA in France, the league’s second biggest European outpost, which this season is hosting the a regular season game in Paris for the first time.
Domestically the league is also trying to make an effort to present national television games to the largest possible audience. Upon announcing its full match schedule, the NBA said that it has worked ‘closely’ with its teams and broadcast partners to arrange earlier start times for doubleheaders and to reduce the number of games running past midnight in the US.
They including 12 of WarnerMedia’s TNT’s 31 doubleheaders and 22 of ESPN’s 36 doubleheaders, which will tip off at 7.30pm and 10 pm or 7pm and 9.30pm (ET), and sees the number of doubleheaders played at 8pm and 10.30pm reduce by a combined 42 per cent compared to last season.
That dramatic shift is in part a response to lowered ratings suffered by the NBA last season, a rare stumble in the league’s recent growth. National NBA ratings were down 15 per cent last season on TNT, while Disney-owned ESPN fell by one per cent. Superstar LeBron James’s move from Cleveland to the Los Angeles Lakers, where his games often aired too late for East Coast viewers, was cited as reason for the downturn.
