NEW YORK – Following a record-breaking year in 2011-12, the NBA will begin its 67^th season on Oct. 30 with eight nationally televised games in four days on TNT, ESPN, and NBA TV as part of Kia NBA Tip-Off ’12.  Highlights include:

Record Viewership in 2011-12

• ABC, TNT and NBA TV each had the most viewed regular season in their history in 2011-12 (ABC: +6%, 5,421,000 vs. 5,110,000; TNT: +4%, 2,498,000 vs. 2,397,000; NBA TV: +31%, 337,000 vs. 258,000) and ESPN had its most viewed playoffs ever (+25%, 6,234,000 vs. 4,975,000).

Regular-Season Viewership Increasing on all Networks over Past Decade

• NBA regular-season viewership has increased dramatically on ABC, ESPN, and TNT since the 2002-03 season (ABC: +44%, 5,421,000 vs. 3,761,000; ESPN: +41%, 1,863,000 vs. 1,324,000; TNT: +87%, 2,498,000 vs. 1,337,000).

NBA Ticket Sales Moving at a Record Pace

• This season, teams have sold more full season tickets than ever before, driven by our highest season ticket renewal rate.
• Last season was the seventh consecutive regular season with attendance at more than 90% capacity on average.

NBA.com Record Traffic and Redesigned Home Page

• com had a record with nearly 7.8 billion page views and more than 3.6 billion video streams last season. A redesigned home page was unveiled for this season.

NBA Has Built One of the Largest Social Media Communities in the World – More than 320 Million Likes and Followers

• League, team, and player pages combined across Twitter and Facebook have more than 270 million likes and followers.
• The NBA has 52 million followers on Tencent and Sina microblogs, and is the most followed sports league in China across social media.

NBA Merchandise Sales Continuing to Soar

• com sales have increased 12% versus last year, marking the largest volume sales year in NBAStore.com history.
• Last year, NBA partners adidas and Spalding recorded their highest NBA sales ever.
• NBA 2K13 set a franchise record for first week sales, up 49% over the previous high.

NBA Continuing to Expand Global Reach

• NBA games and programming are available in more than 215 countries and territories, and a record 47 languages.
• NBA will stage eight international games this season, including seven preseason games played in seven cities in Europe, Mexico and China in October and the league’s third regular-season game in Europe with the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks playing in London in January.