NBA League Pass

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NBA League Pass is an out-of-market sports package that allows its subscribers to watch up to 40 out-of-market National Basketball Association games a week.

League Pass comes in three varieties in the United States: NBA League Pass TV, which plays the games through a cable or satellite TV provider; NBA League Pass Broadband, which uses highspeed Internet connection to stream videos to a computer; and NBA League Pass Mobile, which is for mobile devices.

Customers outside of the United States can sign up for NBA International League Pass.

Videos of the games come from local stations and regional sports networks.

Blackout restrictions

See also NBA blackout policy

If a local team is playing and the game is televised in the home market, the associated feed on League Pass is blacked out and unavailable for viewing.

Per the NBA.com website: “Games will also be blacked out when they are appearing on national television. This applies to games being televised on ABC, ESPN, Fox Sports, TNT and NBA TV. You may view these games simply by switching to the designated channel.”

Although Charter Communications does not offer the NBA TV channel, NBA League Pass Broadband refuses to remove the blackout restrictions from these games. Creating a ticket requesting that the blackout issue be investigated using the league pass customer service website: (http://leaguepasssupport.nba.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=7801) does not allow the blackout to be removed. Using the chat function on the support site also does not remove the blackout restriction. In fact, NBA League Pass Broadband responds with a form email with the language above and claim that you actually do have the NBA TV channel available. As a result of this practice, paying for the full premium league pass package will NOT get you the games you are promised. NBA League Pass broadband will not provide a discount to the services you are being provided even considering the fact that they are not providing the services they have agreed to provide. For many customers this has been a point of contention with the service as the marketing within the website leads many customers to believe this will not be a major impedance on their subscription.

NBA League Pass TV availability

NBA League Pass TV is available with these cable and satellite providers as well as streaming:

• United States:
  • AT&T U-verse
  • DIRECTV
  • Dish Network
  • iN DEMAND Team
    • Cablevision (iO)
    • Comcast
    • Cox Communications
    • Time Warner Cable
    • Adams Cable
    • Blue Ridge Communications
    • RCN
    • Verizon FiOS
  • Roku streaming player^[1]
  • Apple TV^[2]

• Canada:
  • Shaw Direct
    • Cogeco Cable
    • EastLink Cable
    • Rogers Cable

• Mexico and Central America:
  • SKY México

• South America and Caribbean (except Brazil):
  • DirecTV

• Brazil
  • SKY Brasil

• Philippines:
  • Cablelink

Most providers who offer subscriptions to League Pass TV also include NBA TV and a companion League Pass Broadband subscription. It is also given to select cable subs.

NBA International League Pass

In 2010 (the 2010-2011 season) NeuLion^[3] took over^[4] NBA International League Pass Broadband. Many features have been added to the service, including access to individual plays of the game via icons/markers. Game halts like timeouts (Time-out (sport)#Basketball) are filled in with NBA spots/advertisements^[5] and not marked by icons, therefore not immediately accessible. The NBA spots/advertisements have been removed for the 2011 Finals, and game halts were filled with real time images from the arenas including performances of dance teams. The advertisements have been restored again in the 2011-2012 season in the form of a silent "NBA.TV Never miss a shot." screen presented during game halts.

'Condensed' games are offered, meant to sum up the highlights of the game, but there are glitches. For example, the condensed version of the 2011 second round playoff game 5 featuring BOS @ MIA 'started' after the fourth quarter. This has led to heavy criticism among fans looking for a spoiler-free recap.

NBA League Pass Broadband

The NBA offers a similar service for viewing games on a computer screen over the internet, with the same blackout rules. Options include the Premium plan, which allows users to watch all games not subject to blackout, and a reduced-price Choice plan, for which users choose 7 teams whose games they can watch. Customers can watch the games live or in an archive available at any point till the end of the regular season.

Prices in the 2009-2010 season were $149.95 for the Premium package and $99.95 for the Choice package. In 2010-2011, the prices rose 20% to $179.95 and $109.95 respectively as “early bird” rates for those who signed up before the season started, and $189.95 and $119.95 as the rates once the season began. For at least the past two years, the service has offered a free trial for the first games of the regular season. In the 2010-2011 season, trial customers could watch all non-blackout games from October 26 (the start of the regular season) through November 2. For the 2009-2010 season, a half-year package was offered at a reduced price beginning around the middle of the season. In 2010-2011, the Playoffs and Finals Premium and Standard packages were offered at $99.95 and $79.95 respectively. In 2011-2012, the Playoffs and Finals package was offered at $69.99.

WNBA Season Pass

Former WNBA Season Pass logo

From 1999 to 2001, NBA League Pass had a companion service called WNBA Season Pass which showed out-of-market games of the Women's National Basketball Association. The WNBA has discontinued this service; today, all national broadcasts are on ABC, ESPN2, or NBA TV. However, they now offer the WNBA Broadband Season Pass, a web program that allows subscribers to watch every game live for each season.^[6]

See also

• National Basketball Association criticisms and controversies

References

External links

• Official site