Sirius game for basketball satcasting
Co. beats out rival XM for deal
Satcasts of the games, using each home team's local play-by-play feed, will begin in mid-February in a deal that runs through the end of next season.
Sirius beat out competitor XM to snare the deal, though Larry Rebich, Sirius' VP of programming and market development, acknowledged it is non-exclusive. He declined to specify the value of the deal.
Both satellite radio services transmit about 100 channels of music, news, sports, weather, talk and other programming to monthly subscribers, primarily listeners in cars, recreational vehicles, long-haul trucks and marine vessels.
Local flavor
The NBA deal likely will appeal most directly to fans who live far from their favorite teams' home city.
"If you're a Laker fan living in New York, you don't have a lot of options to hear a game if you're driving in your car," Rebich said. "We're very excited about this deal. It helps identify us as a premium programming provider."
To carry as many as a dozen games a night, the company will interrupt regular programming on its three regional weather channels, as well as those for talk and politics, entertainment, sports talk and its CourTV Plus channel.
Sirius and XM have each spent more than $1 billion getting their services going over the past two years. XM was faster out of the gate, by eight months, and holds about a 12-1 lead in subscribers, according to year-end numbers released earlier this month. Sirius has picked up about 30,000 subscribers since its April launch.
