Other than the World Cup, until around August, the biggest story of the summer was LeBron James leaving the Miami Heat to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers. It’s a natural that TV networks are going to have major interest in any time the two clubs meet during the 2014-15 season. ABC, ESPN and TNT will combine to air all four of Cleveland and Miami’s showdowns this season, including an NBA on Christmas Day slot.
ESPN will take it to an even greater extent this Saturday: by putting the Heat and Cavs on ESPNews as they showdown in the preseason from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The network’s press release makes it more about the network expanding its international profile, but they’re still devoting decent assets to it:
This Saturday, Oct. 11, at 5 p.m. ET, ESPNEWS will televise NBA preseason action as the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James face the Miami Heat and Dwyane Wade in James’ first game against his former team. The game will emanate from the HSBC Arena in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Marc Kestecher and analyst Jon Barry will call the action with ESPN NBA Insider Brian Windhorst providing on-site reports. ESPN International will also carry the game in Brazil, Latin America, the Pac-Rim and the Caribbean (other than Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands).
We’ve written before about the future of ESPNews and whether it might be in more live game programming. That’s been a clear shift in content strategy for Bristol over the years. Even though it’s preseason, this is still a fairly high profile event for ESPNews to get the rights to. If it draws any kind of rating, could ESPN justify showing even more NBA preseason games on the network in the future?
