The network obtained rights to air NBA games[3] beginning with the 1984-85 season[4] (replacing the ESPN and USA Network as the NBA's national cable partners) in which TBS shared the NBA television package along with CBS. The 1989-90 season then saw Turner start to split the NBA cable package between TBS and TNT. TBS then lost its portion of the cable package to ESPN prior to the start of the 2002-03 season.
Coverage
Atlanta Hawks
For many years beginning when the station assumed rights to the team's game telecasts in the late 1970s, WTBS (channel 17) in Atlanta – which served as the originating feed of the national TBS cable channel from December 1976 to October 2007 – aired some regular season games from the Atlanta Hawks (which was also owned by Ted Turner at the time), which also aired nationally on WTBS's superstation feed;[5] TBS aired the games nationwide until the telecasts became subjected to NBA blackout restrictions within 35 miles of the home team's arena, resulting in many Hawks away games televised by the network being unavailable to cable providers within the designated market area of the opposing team (this restriction was dropped when TNT gained the right to be the exclusive broadcaster of any game that it chose to carry).
When it began to televise games from NBA teams other than the Hawks beginning with the 1984-85 season, TBS maintained a package of approximately 55 regular season NBA games annually[6] on Tuesday and Friday nights. TBS also carried numerous NBA Playoff games as well as the NBA draft[7][8] from 1985-1989.
Playoff coverage
TBS was also allowed to televise 20 early round conference playoff games beginning with the 1985 NBA playoffs. In 1986, TBS (as well as CBS) did not carry Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, relegating the broadcast of that game to television stations in the team's designated market areas; this would be the last time that an NBA Conference Finals game was not televised on a national network. During the 1989 NBA playoffs, only 13 of the 24 games (comprising Games 1-3 of each series) in the first round aired on TBS or CBS. For example, none of the four games from the Seattle-Houston first round series appeared on national television.
Beginning in 1986, TBS televised the various contests from the NBA All-Star Weekend. In 1987, the slam dunk contest was televised live for the very first time on the network.
In the summer of 1988, the Turner Broadcasting System signed a new joint broadcast contract between TBS and TNT[9][10] effective with the 1989-90 NBA season; beginning that season, TBS and TNT split broadcast rights to televise NBA games. TNT held rights to broadcast the NBA Draft and most NBA regular season and playoff games, while TBS only aired single games or double-headers once a week.
Both networks continued to expand their NBA coverage during the late 1990s;[11][12] by this time, TBS only aired games on Wednesday nights, while TNT ran games on Monday, Tuesday and Friday nights. By 1994, the opening round of the playoffs featured overlapping doubleheaders on both TBS and TNT on the first two nights of each series.
1999–2001
For the 1999-2000 NBA season, TBS shifted its primetime game telecasts from Wednesdays to Mondays.[13] For the 2000-2001 NBA season, the broadcasts were moved to Tuesdays, while TNT assumed rights to Wednesday and Thursday evening games.
Starting in 2000, the NBA spread out telecasts of games from the Eastern Conference and Western Conference playoff series so that only two series would play on their scheduled game days (so as to avoid scheduling conflicts and ratings competition between TNT and TBS). TNT would air doubleheaders on most weekdays, while TBS would air one doubleheader each week.
2001–2002
The 2001-2002 season would ultimately mark TBS's final year of NBA coverage. Turner Sports signed a new NBA television contract in which TNT would assume rights to the company's NBA package, while TBS would discontinue game coverage altogether; ESPN assumed TBS's half of the league's cable television rights. During 2002, TBS aired doubleheaders every Tuesday night of the playoffs until the Conference Finals. The final NBA game ever to be regularly televised on TBS aired on May 13, 2002, when the San Antonio Spurs faced the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 5 of the Western Semifinals. In that last game, Robert Horry hit a key three-pointer that won the series four games to one for the Lakers to move on to the Western Conference Finals.
Coverage anomalies
On May 3, 1992, Game 4 of the playoff series between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Utah Jazz was rescheduled due to the 1992 Los Angeles riots and its broadcast was moved to TBS from NBC, creating a problem as the game was now required to be blacked out within the Los Angeles television market. The game was only available in the Los Angeles area through SportsChannel Los Angeles, a regional sportspremium cable service (as opposed to TBS, which operates as a basic cable channel and at the time, a superstation). SportsChannel Los Angeles chose not to unscramble its signal and as a result, viewers complained in letters to the Los Angeles Times and other sources that the game should have been made available to all cable subscribers as a public service.
The above situations are not unlike those that have been encountered during TBS telecasts of Major League BaseballDivision Series games since 2007; at times, due to certain games running over their scheduled end time, TNT has had to air the first few minutes of games that TBS is supposed to cover.
Since 2015, TBS has simulcast TNT’s coverage of the NBA All-Star Game. In 2019, instead of simulcasting TNT’s feed, TBS carried a special Players Only telecast, with Greg Anthony, a former NBA first-round pick, doing play-by-play, Hall of Famer Charles Barkley from Inside the NBA, and Kevin Garnett, Minnesota Timberwolves legend, analyzing the game, with former NBA 3-point marksman Dennis Scott reporting from the sidelines. TBS returned to simulcasting TNT’s feed in 2020, after the Players Only brand was canceled by the NBA, Turner Sports, and NBA TV. In 2022 and 2023, the Inside the NBA crew called TBS' alternate broadcast of the All-Star Game.
