{"id":3508,"date":"2018-10-15T15:00:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T20:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=3508"},"modified":"2018-10-18T09:04:57","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T14:04:57","slug":"sky-sports-secures-rights-to-show-nba-in-uk-and-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=3508","title":{"rendered":"Sky Sports Secures Rights to Show NBA in UK and Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ShaunLivingstonGoldenStateWarriorsvRichardJeffersonClevelandCavaliersJun16_large.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"325\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3509\" srcset=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ShaunLivingstonGoldenStateWarriorsvRichardJeffersonClevelandCavaliersJun16_large.jpg 600w, https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ShaunLivingstonGoldenStateWarriorsvRichardJeffersonClevelandCavaliersJun16_large-300x163.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/>Sky Sports has announced a four-year deal with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to become the home of the world&#8217;s best basketball league in the UK and Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>The pay-TV firm picked up the rights after BT Sport walked away from renewal talks with the North American-based league this summer and it will now broadcast more than 170 live games a season.<\/p>\n<p>Also included in the deal are online highlights, news, statistics and other digital content, with live games and highlights from the 2019 Women&#8217;s NBA season starting in May.<\/p>\n<p>The NBA, which is closing the gap on the National Football League (NFL) in terms of popularity in the US, starts again on Tuesday night with a Philadelphia 76ers-Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors-Oklahoma City Thunder doubleheader on Sky Sports Main Event.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, Sky Sports managing director Barney Francis said: &#8220;We&#8217;re partnering with a really exciting sport that has a fascinating history and an even more compelling future.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With some of the biggest stars in world sport, we know the NBA will bring drama and entertainment to our customers week after week, available across our many different platforms.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Coverage will include an average of five live games per week during the regular season, including 42 games in European prime time as part of the league&#8217;s NBA Saturdays and NBA Sundays offerings.<\/p>\n<p>Sky Sports will also broadcast four back-to-back games on Christmas Day from 5pm Irish time, and extensive coverage of the All-Star weekend, the draft, the play-offs and the finals.<\/p>\n<p>The Warriors, led by Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, are the pre-season favorites to add a fourth title in five years, but the Houston Rockets, who nearly beat them in this year&#8217;s Western Conference finals, and Eastern Conference favorites the Celtics, are expected to mount strong challenges.<\/p>\n<p>LeBron James&#8217; move from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Los Angeles Lakers is also likely to provide plenty of story lines.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-3508\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=3508&amp;share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-3508\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=3508&amp;share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-google-plus-1\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-google-3508\" class=\"share-google-plus-1 sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=3508&amp;share=google-plus-1\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Google+\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-print\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-print sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=3508\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to print\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to print (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sky Sports has announced a four-year deal with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to become the home of the world&#8217;s best basketball league in the UK and Ireland. The pay-TV firm picked up the rights after BT Sport walked away&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-3508\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=3508&amp;share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-3508\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=3508&amp;share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-google-plus-1\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"sharing-google-3508\" class=\"share-google-plus-1 sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=3508&amp;share=google-plus-1\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Google+\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-print\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-print sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/?p=3508\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to print\"><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to print (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3510,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions\/3510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}