The 2021/22 NBL fixture was announced this morning. The season starts on Friday, December 3, with new team Tasmania JackJumpers hosting Adelaide 36ers at MyState Bank Arena (formerly Derwent Entertainment Centre) in Hobart.
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During the week the NBL made major changes to the first six rounds of 2021/22 season fixture, due to WA’s hard border closure against Victoria and NSW. The JackJumpers will now host Brisbane Bullets on December 3, while Adelaide 36ers travel to Perth to face the Wildcats. The Wildcats will now play five home games in the first three weeks of the season before hitting the road for a block of away games.
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AFL Media’s Nat Edwards and Andrew Gaze host a weekly basketball show The Jump, which starts this Friday (December 3) at 7pm AEDT on ESPN.
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oh the height difference!
Don’t know if this is the first time but ESPN has currently taken over 507 Fox Sports More and using it as a overflow channel for NBL as ESPN is currently showing live UFC, ESPN2 is currently showing live NBA
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Yep weird seeing both Fox sports and ESPN live watermarks at the same time for one country’s own coverage. I’d doubt ESPN has taken over Fox Sports 507 but rather Fox Sports 507 just showing the ESPN coverage like how EPSN shows FOX sports US games.
Edit: Scratch that, looks like they taking ESPN ads aswell so maybe it’s an overfiow channel.
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The game on 507 is running late so the game that’s supposed to be on ESPN (509) at 3:00pm has been delayed, so ESPN is showing fill in programming.
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So, how does one watch ice hockey now in Australia? You have to have Foxtel and subscribe to ESPN?
Or Fetch (or Kayo, but Kayo doesnt get you access to ESPN’s streaming service which is carrying most, if not all games)
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Seems like ESPN are going to be using Fox Sports 507 again for NBL coverage on Boxing Day.
Boxing Day is, of course, NBA marathon day plus there are NFL commitments, but there is also an NBL triple-header in the afternoon. The 1pm AEDT (Jackjumpers vs Breakers) and 3pm (Sydney vs Melbourne) games will be on 507. The 5.30pm (Brisbane vs Cairns) game will be on ESPN(1).
At least they are properly advertising at as such on the TV ads, albeit only briefly in vision at the end.
Sky NZ are using Sky Sport 2 in this case for the NBL overflow, for what it’s worth for MS readers across the ditch. Don’t know if the channel Sky uses is constant for these. ESPN doesn’t advertise that.
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Super Bowl LVI will also see the Monday Night Football team of Steve Levy, Brian Griese and Louis Riddick once again call the Rams-Bengals decider exclusively for Australia and New Zealand audiences.
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Buck and Aikman will call an Australian-NZ feed for ESPN’s English language Super Bowl broadcast next February with the pair jumping ship from Fox as of the 2022-23 NFL season.
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You wonder why they’d let Buck go. He was the only good thing going for Fox’s coverage. The NBC and CBS calling teams are now far better.
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It’s a huge loss for Fox. Buck also calls the World Series
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I’m sure Fox wouldn’t have wanted him to go considering how long he’s been with them. However, ESPN is reportedly offering him $60 - $75 million US over five years. It’s a staggering amount that most people would accept and for Buck, jumping ship allows him to continue working with Aikman.
If the dedicated broadcast does happen again, it would be quite a coup for ESPN Aus/NZ to have a top-tier broadcast team like Buck and Aikman fronting the broadcast.
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The thought of Joe & Troy calling Super Bowl every year on the ESPN AU/NZ feed makes me very happy.
As for how we got here, Troy Aikman jumped ship first as his contract was up and Fox didn’t put up a fight against ESPN’s approx $18m/year (which incidentally puts him level with Tony Romo for remuneration). As soon as it happened, rumours started swirling that ESPN were trying to get Joe Buck as well…the problem was Joe had a year left on his contract at Fox. The rumours were that ESPN would trade some high profile college football games for Joe’s release.
While losing Joe and Troy is a big loss for Fox, it probably solves some problems for Fox too. Firstly, Joe likes calling with Troy and would probably jump at the end of his contract which would mean the upcoming season would have a placeholder #1 booth of Joe and someone. Greg Olsen is likely to become the top analyst at Fox, but is it worth splitting him up from Kevin Burkhardt for the year just to reunite them afterwards? Or do you give Joe a partner just for the year who won’t stay in their top booth afterwards? Or do you elevate Kevin and Greg immediately and relegate Joe to the #2 booth, ensuring you have no chance of keeping him when his contract is up?
Arguably cleaner to let Joe go, elevate Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen to the #1 booth, and shuffle the remaining talent around. They have a decent roster of fill-in commentators to choose from to plug the gaps.
ESPN/ABC’s games don’t compete directly with Fox’s games, unlike CBS, so Fox probably feel it’s a loss but not a threat to their own operations, and if they can gain a few high profile college football games from ESPN in the trade, even better.
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It’s been confirmed that Joe Buck and Troy Aikman will join ESPN.
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A little more content being shoved to ESPN’s app
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The schedule for the 2022 NBL semi finals was released tonight, after the Perth Wildcats lost the final game of the regular season and missed the playoffs for the first time since 1986.
The semi finals start this Thursday, April 28.
Update: there will be a semi-final on FTA - see post by OnAir below
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