POSTED BY: Eurobasket News
NEBA ANNOUNCES TELEVISION NETWORK DEAL
by: Nick Garton
The New Era Basketball Association is launching its own television network, league President Kevin Williams announced on Tuesday. It is the latest in a series of major announcements concerning New Era Basketball and could pave the way the league to grow its fan base exponentially.The network will be a year round 24 hour sports network. It will take advantage of the availability of on demand programming as well as live original programs, and , of course, plenty of game broadcasts. League representative Dominique Wilford said that they are expecting a viewership of close to 2 million people in the first season. NEBA had previously expressed plans to use a different television medium in order to broadcast it's games, but the league has expanded to the point where they needed their own network in order to handle to amount of interest they expect. 'It will be online and also shown on local public access tv in our NEBA states,' Wilford said. NEBA has teams in many of the largest markets on the country with teams in cities such as Boston, New York, San Antonio, Detroit and Houston. Wilford also pointed out that no other minor league has a television network of their own. NEBA continues to show the vision and structure that other minor sports leagues and even some major professional leagues have been unable to match. Kevin Williams is confident that the network will catch on. He expects the programming to be 24 hours a day of various sports ranging from high school and AAU basketball all the way to youth football or volleyball. Williams said that games and programming will be available to steam on tablets and smart phones. He sees the network as being vital to the self-sustainment of New Era Basketball. 'We're pretty much reaching out to anyone who doesn't have a big time stage to broadcast their games over NEBA TV,' Williams said. 'We want to be able to control our own brand and cut out the middle man, so we can be the middle man.' Williams envisions having live broadcasts and on demand archives for both NEBA games as well as any other sports that choose to air over NEBA TV. The network is expected to launch as soon as the league is able to finalize agreements with advertising agencies and other official sponsors. For more information on the NEBA visit www.officialneba.com
Milton Nash (6'1''-G)
