The Golden State Warriors tip off against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday in a rematch between the two teams only four days after they played an overtime thriller. Fans at the Oracle Arena will be cheering on Kevin Durant, but those tuning in at home will get an interesting experience of their own.
At 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN will livestream the game on the ESPN App and air it on ESPNews, and fans tuning in on either platform will be provided a second-screen view into the game.
Fans watching will be able to see an non-traditional camera angle on one part of the screen, and see and hear commentary from ESPN’s roster of NBA analysts, as well as stats and facts about the game, in the other boxes. The analysts include Cassidy Hubbarth, Jalen Rose, recently-hired senior NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski, and a number of niche experts in front office matters, sneakers, and the NBA Draft, according to the network.
NBA on ESPN senior coordinating producer Tim Corrigan spoke about the second screen at the SVG Summit in New York last week, noting that ESPN won’t be taking any commercial breaks while in the second-screen experience.
“We’ll have a host back in the studio — not unlike a little bit of what Turner’s doing, but for us, like Woj, Bobby Marks, Nick DePaula, people like that, Mike Schmitz, who can offer a completely different narrative,” Corrigan said. “And the game will still be on the screen the whole time, we’ll cut non-traditional angles, and it’ll just be a more interesting narrative and again, it’ll be more access…”
News. Trade and free agent possibilities. Cap management. Draft evaluations. Shoe deals. https://t.co/vo1jTlFtLd
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 19, 2017
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ESPN’s second screen effort has precedent, introducing its NBA Sidecast programming on ESPN3 that ran alongside the linear telecast on ESPN, in April and May during the regular season and playoffs. The NBA Sidecast featured the game in one box and a merry-go-round of commentators in the other box, where the camera was trained inside ESPN’s Los Angeles Production Center.
Friday’s second-screen telecast will keep the game in one box while the commentators pass the mic onto the NBA Countdown crew — Michelle Beadle, Paul Pierce and Chauncey Billups — based at the L.A. production center, and the game crew of Dave Pasch, Doris Burke, and Israel Gutierrez at Oracle Arena, according to the announcement.
After being rocked with layoffs and this week’s resignation of its president, ESPN is hoping to draw viewers’ eyes back to the television screen. Providing meaningful analysis alongside the game could prove successful in doing just that.