(14 December 2005 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Sirius Satellite Radio in the US have announced a multi-year agreement.

This expands upon their current broadcast arrangement and makes Sirius an official NBA marketing partner.

The two parties have launched NBA Radio on Sirius. This is the first 24X7, year-round radio channel devoted to the NBA. It features content from NBA TV, including news, highlights and features on the league, its teams and players, and will showcase specialized programming that will be heard exclusively on Sirius.

This deal makes Sirius the broadcaster of more live NBA games than any other radio outlet. As part of their original agreement, in February 2003, the NBA became the first major professional sports league to provide live games on Sirius.

Sirius features more than 1,000 regular season games, plus every game of the NBA playoffs and the finals. Sirius has the exclusive national satellite radio rights to NBA team radio broadcasts and will air regular season games from every NBA team.

Throughout the regular season, Sirius will air the home team's local radio broadcast. During the NBA playoffs and the finals, Sirius will offer the home team, visiting team and national radio broadcasts.

In India, NBA action airs on Star Sports.

NBA commissioner David Stern says, "Sirius is the content leader in satellite radio and this deal deepens our partnership by delivering more NBA games and programming to our fans and provides new marketing opportunities for Sirius to promote its product and brand. Expanding our partnership with Sirius reinforces our belief in their continued growth and our commitment to embrace all forms of new media."

Sirius Satellite Radio CEO Mel Karmazin says, "The NBA is one of the most powerful names in sports and Sirius is excited to partner with this first-class organisation. The NBA draws an ever-larger audience of passionate fans from all across America and those fans will have access to more NBA basketball on Sirius than anywhere else on radio. This agreement is a significant enhancement to our superior sports lineup and underscores our ongoing commitment to bring the best sports programming to Sirius subscribers."

As the official satellite radio marketing partner of the NBA, Sirius will conduct NBA-themed advertising and promotions with the NBA logo.

On NBA.com, the league's official Web site that claims to generate more than 2.75 million visitors per day, Sirius will feature advertising, logo placement and a reciprocal link to Sirius.com. Sirius' NBA programming schedule and channel listings will be available on NBA.com.

Sirius will also have a presence in the world's only NBA Store, located on Fifth Avenue in New York City, which receives one million visitors each year. The NBA Store will feature a fully interactive Sirius display for the duration of each NBA season with a listening station that will allow customers to sample Sirius radios and programming. For select weeks, Sirius signage and products will be displayed in store windows and visitors to the NBA Store will receive a Sirius brochure/insert with every purchase.