NBA TV Canada is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

specialty channel A specialty channel (also known in the United States as a cable channel or cable network) can be a commercial broadcasting or non-commercial television channel which consists of television programming focused on a single genre, subject or targeted ...

owned by

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSE) is a professional sports and commercial real estate company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With assets that include franchises in four of the six major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

(MLSE). It is a Canadian version of

NBA TV NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regular ...

, broadcasting programming focused on the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

, and its Canadian franchise, the

Toronto Raptors The Toronto Raptors are a Canadian professional basketball team based in Toronto. The Raptors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. They play their home games a ...

History

In December 2000, MLSE was granted approval by the

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...

(CRTC) for a Category 2 digital

licence tentatively known as Raptors Basketball Channel, a channel described as being devoted primarily to the

basketball franchise and the

(NBA), with additional programming related to other aspects of basketball. The channel was launched on September 7, 2001, as Raptors NBA TV, with programming focused on the NBA and other basketball-related programming, although it maintained a particular emphasis on the Toronto Raptors. On November 1, 2005, the network launched a high definition simulcast. On October 15, 2010, the channel was renamed as NBA TV Canada, as the network began to air more programming devoted to the NBA and international basketball in general, sourced from its U.S. counterpart.NBA TV Canada is on the Air!
NBA, October 15, 2010 The channel was valued at $21 million on behalf of the CRTC in 2012.

Programming

NBA TV Canada broadcasts programming primarily related to the NBA and the Raptors, as well as coverage of other leagues including the

NBA G League The NBA G League, or simply the G League, is the National Basketball Association's (NBA) official List of developmental and minor sports leagues, minor league basketball organization. The league was known as the National Basketball Development ...

, Summer League, and the

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Natio ...

(WNBA). Regular hosts for local studio programming include

David Amber David Amber (born April 21, 1971) is a Canadian anchor for Sportsnet as a host and reporter. He is best known for his time doing ''NHL On the Fly'' on the NHL Network and as the anchor for ''Gate 5 Live'', ''Raptors Pregame'', and ''Raptors Po ...

Sherman Hamilton Sherman Hamilton (born April 23, 1972) is a retired Canadian professional basketball player. Hamilton was a longtime member of the Canadian men's national basketball team. He is currently a basketball analyst for Sportsnet and NBA TV Canada. Car ...

, Matt Devlin,

Leo Rautins Leo Rytis Rautins (born March 20, 1960) is a Canadian broadcaster, former professional basketball player and the former head coach of the Canada men's national basketball team, Canadian men's national basketball team. Rautins played in the Nationa ...

and Jack Armstrong. The channel broadcasts NBA games sourced from NBA TV and

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

, and NBA TV series and studio programs. NBA TV Canada does not broadcast live Raptors games outside of the pre-season (which are split between the networks of TSN and

Sportsnet Sportsnet is a Canadian English-language sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between CTV, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. CTV parent Bell Globemedia then ...

—which are owned by the co-majority owners of MLSE,

Rogers Communications Rogers Communications Inc. is a Telecommunications in Canada, Canadian communications and media company operating primarily in the fields of mobile phone operator, wireless communications, cable television, telephony and Internet access, Intern ...

and

Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in t ...

), but does broadcast full and abbreviated encores of Raptors telecasts.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nba Tv Canada Sports television networks in Canada Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment National Basketball Association on television English-language television stations in Canada Television channels and stations established in 2001 Digital cable television networks in Canada