NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN broke a new ad campaign today for its coverage of the upcoming National Basketball Assocation season, centered around the theme "The new home of the NBA." A sneak peek of the campaign was shown during sibling network ABC's coverage of the Notre Dame college football game Oct. 5. The campaign starts in earnest today. Spending wasn't disclosed. $4.6 billion NBA deal Walt Disney and AOL Time Warner signed a six-year, $4.6 billion rights deal with the NBA in June. Disney's ESPN and ESPN2, AOL Time Warner's TNT and a new cable network formed in a 50-50 joint venture between the NBA and AOL Time Warner will carry more than 200 games when the season begins later this month. by longtime agency Wieden & Kennedy, New York, will feature six humorous TV spots. The theme for each centers around a home where NBA athletes and ESPN personalities live together as one extended family. "ESPN hasn't had NBA games on our air since the '80s, so the NBA on ESPN was big news in and of itself," said Lee Ann Daly, senior vice president of ESPN Marketing. "The goal of our campaign was to find the simplest, most memorable way to communicate our excitement at being together again as one big happy family." 16 players featured The spots feature 16 NBA stars, including Tracy McGrady of the Orlando Magic, Baron Davis of the New Orleans Hornets and Kenyon Martin of the New Jersey Nets, as well as flamboyant Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. ESPN anchors include Dan Patrick, Stuart Scott and Mike Tirico, among others. NBA Commissioner David Stern will appear in a cameo in one of the ads. Mr. Tirico will also appear in the print and out-of-home portion of the campaign, sharing a bunk bed with Yao Ming, the 7-foot-6 No. 1 draft pick of the Houston Rockets.
I think this will hurt the NBA as far as coverage is concerned. Close to 50% of the viewing public still have no access to cable and won't be able to watch games on ESPN or other cable channels. The WNBA will really feel the loss losing national games on network tv. os
Interesting. Gotta call wrong forum on it, but interesting. Is Ming 7'5" or 7'6"? Can we get a definitive answer on that?
I don't know but I did see one of the funniest commercials ever. The one with Dan Patrick, T-Mac, Wally, and David Stern. Very Funny. It was promoting the NBA's new home. Yao is 7'6 with shoes. I don't know why people say 7'5, it's not like he's going to be playing without shoes, right?
For the record, in the latest ESPN the Magazine (Giambi on the cover) the NBA ad with Yao Ming is in there! It shows a room filled with basketball/NBA stuff and a bunkbed. Mike Tirico (host of ESPN's NBA show) is shown sleeping in the bottom bunk and Yao Ming is sitting on the top bunk with his legs over the side reading a book. The ad REALLY caught me by surprise! Very cool. Also, the TV commercial with Tracy McGrady, Wally, Dan Patrick and David Stern is hilarious. Have seen that a number of times on ESPN over the weekend. Chris
I disagree. If anything, the NBA is gaining more coverage. ESPN will be showing games during the week, in tandem with TNT/TBS, and ABC will be showing feature games on the weekends, much like NBC has done over the years. So actually, the NBA gains a national network. However, IMHO what continues to hurt the NBA is the lack of local, comprehensive coverage in respective markets. We're really lucky here in Houston to have an opportunity to see all 82 games if we choose, or at least about half of them if you don't have cable.
I think you have to take height measurements in the NBA with a grain of salt. They always listed Hakeem as 7'0" and David Robinson as 7'1". When they matched up thought, you would notice that David had a couple of inches on the Dream (in fact, a few years ago, when Cato and Dream would stand side by side, Cato looked like he had at least an inch or two over Dream). I think Hakeem was closer to 6'10" - 6'11". Which in my mind, makes his accolades even that much more impressive. And obviously, we all know that The Chuckster WAS NOT 6'7" or 6'8".
Another thing that doesn't help the NBA exposure, at least in Houston, is that the local channels don't have any ads or news coverage about the Rox. I was watching the news this morning and during the sports segment, there was ZERO mention of the Rockets.. They talked about baseball playoffs that the Astros aren't in again, the MNF game between GB and Chi and the OU/TT game...Why not a mention of the Rockets? Their first preseason game is tonite, you would think that would be worth mentioning. How many people outside us diehards do you think are gonna find out about all the positive things that we should see this year? If you went by the local news, you would think there isn't anything new to be excited about..most normal people probably still think that the Rox will be in the cellars again..and that doesn't help attendance at all. We need the local stations to try to at least mention the fact that we *do* have a NBA team around here, just in case some ppl may have forgotten. Sorry folks...had to get that off my chest.
