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USA Basketball to livestream men’s, women’s exhibitions on Facebook
Cord-cutting fans looking to keep up with the U.S. men’s and women’s national basketball teams as they prepare to push for another round of gold medals at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil will be able to follow both teams’ tune-up contests live on Facebook.
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In addition to their broadcasts on NBA TV, Team USA’s nine exhibition contests on the road to Rio de Janeiro — which begins on Friday, July 22, when the men’s team takes on Argentina — will be live-streamed on both the USA Basketball and NBA Facebook pages, “and they may show up as promoted posts in your feed, too,” according to Tim Moynihan of Wired:
According to the NBA, the games will only be aired live; there won’t be cached versions to watch later. And Facebook’s stream will be simulcast straight from NBA TV, which should offer insight to how many people stream the games online versus on TV. The live streams will be available internationally.
More details, from Kurt Wagner at Recode:
The broadcast you’ll find on Facebook is the same broadcast you’ll find through NBA TV. In order to watch the NBA TV stream online, though, you need to authenticate, which means logging in with your cable provider to prove your cable package includes NBA TV. On Facebook, the broadcast will be free.
The broadcast will be “Presented by Verizon,” which means you’ll see other NBA content where you’d usually see commercials. Facebook is not paying the NBA for the video broadcasts, but it’s also not getting any money from Verizon. The stream is considered “branded content,” which means the publisher (the NBA) makes money from the deal, but not Facebook, a company spokesperson said.
The announcement of the NBA/USAB deal with Facebook comes on the heels of the unveiling of a similar streaming partnership between the NBA and Twitter that will see the NBA’s digital arm produce a free live stream of a weekly NBA pre-game show “created specifically for integration with Twitter conversation,” as the drive to secure the rights to in-demand and potentially lucrative live sports content becomes an increasingly contentious digital battleground. Unlike the NBA-Twitter deal, Facebook will be getting to stream actual gameplay rather than just pre-game conversation; as Wired’s Moynihan notes, though, this deal doesn’t cover the rights to actual Olympic basketball games. NBC owns the broadcast rights to those; cord-cutting fans will be able to watch them online at NBCOlympics.com and on the NBC Sports app.
This year’s model of the men’s squad doesn’t feature quite as many household names, with LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, Anthony Davis, Blake Griffin, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge all opting out of this year’s Olympic Games for one reason or another. Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski’s team still boasts plenty of firepower, though, led by two-time gold medalist Carmelo Anthony, the Golden State Warriors trio of Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, and 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup MVP Kyrie Irving, and remains heavy favorites to win a third straight gold medal.
As dominant as the American men have been in recent years, they can’t hold a candle to the women’s side, which is the odds-on favorite to win its sixth straight gold medal and its eighth in 10 appearances since the introduction of women’s play at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. Helmed by UConn’s Geno Auriemma’s stacked squad features a slew of elite WNBA players, including Seimone Augustus, Sue Bird, Tamika Catchings, Tina Charles, Elena Delle Donne, Sylvia Fowles, Brittney Griner, Angel McCoughtry, Maya Moore, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi and Lindsay Whalen.
Here’s the schedule for the exhibition games that will stream on Facebook (all times Eastern):
• July 22, 9 p.m.: U.S. men vs. Argentina
• July 24, 8 p.m.: U.S. men vs. China
• July 25, 10 p.m.: U.S. women vs. USA Basketball Select Team
• July 26, 10 p.m.: U.S. men vs. China
• July 27, 7:30 p.m.: U.S. women vs. France
• July 29, 7 p.m.: U.S. women vs. Canada
• July 29, 9 p.m.: U.S. men vs. Venezuela
• July 31, 4 p.m.: U.S. women vs. Australia
• Aug. 1, 8 p.m.: U.S. men vs. Nigeria
More USA Basketball coverage:
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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