NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO – The National Basketball Association (NBA) will launch two new live weekly shows exclusively on Twitter beginning the opening week of the 2016-17 NBA regular season.  The Starters Twitter Show and The Warmup will be produced by Turner Sports from its Turner Studios in Atlanta and will be available at TheStarters.twitter.com, TheWarmup.twitter.com, Twitter Moments and through @NBA.

The Starters Twitter Show — featuring NBA TV’s social-savvy, popular collection of fan-focused voices with a unique take on the game, will be streamed live each Tuesday throughout the regular season beginning on opening day, Oct. 25, at 11 a.m. ET.  Co-hosts J.E. Skeets and Tas Melas, along with Trey Kerby, Leigh Ellis, Matt Osten and Jason Doyle, will deliver their trademark passion for the game with the same fun, entertaining and engaging content that they provide each week on NBA TV and through their podcasts.

The Warmup, a blend of the NBA, lifestyle, music, and pop culture, will be a weekly NBA pregame show that integrates Twitter conversation into every program.  The show will be live streamed from Turner Studios’ new state-of-the-art social content studio beginning Thursday, Oct. 27, at 7:30 p.m. The 30-minute show, leading up to Turner Sports’ NBA on TNT coverage featuring doubleheader action, will be co-hosted by sports and entertainment commentator Ben Lyons and emcee, DJ and sports personality Ro Parrish. Both personalities have a wide range of experiences across television, radio, social and digital content, including host and guest appearances on prominent national shows. The Warmup will also include appearances by comedian Tony Rock throughout the season.

In addition, the NBA and Twitter have launched exclusive hashtag-triggered emojis for all 30 teams. Team hashtags can be found here: https://twitter.com/NBA/status/790568826802929664.

Since the NBA joined Twitter in 2009, the league has built the largest Twitter community of any sports league in the world with more than 23.5 million followers.

About the NBA
The NBA is a global sports and media business built around three professional sports leagues: the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, and the NBA Development League.  The league has established a major international presence with games and programming in 215 countries and territories in 49 languages, and NBA merchandise for sale in more than 125,000 stores in 100 countries on 6 continents.  NBA rosters at the start of the 2015-16 season featured 100 international players from 37 countries and territories.  NBA Digital’s assets include NBA.com and the NBA app, which achieved record traffic during the 2014-15 season, as well as NBA TV.  The NBA has created one of the largest social media communities in the world, with more than one billion likes and followers globally across all league, team, and player platforms.  Through NBA Cares, the league addresses important social issues by working with internationally recognized youth-serving organizations that support education, youth and family development, and health-related causes.

About NBA Digital

NBA Digital is the NBA’s extensive cross-platform portfolio of digital assets jointly managed by the NBA and Turner Sports including NBA TV, NBA.com, the NBA App, NBA LEAGUE PASS, WNBA.com and NBADLEAGUE.com.
About Twitter
Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) is what’s happening in the world right now. From breaking news and entertainment to sports and politics, from big events to everyday interests. If it’s happening anywhere, it’s happening first on Twitter. Twitter is where the full story unfolds with all the live commentary and where live events come to life unlike anywhere else. Twitter is available in more than 40 languages around the world. The service can be accessed at Twitter.com, on a variety of mobile devices and via SMS. For more information, visit about.twitter.com or follow @twitter.

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