History will happen in Tampa, Florida tonight when the Toronto Raptors play the Denver Nuggets in Tampa, Florida.
For the first time in the history of the world’s premier basketball league, the National Basketball Association, a game–tonight’s game–will be broadcast by an all-female crew.
The Sports Network production will have Meghan McPeak doing the play-by-play with Canadian National Team and WNBA guard Kia Nurse of the Phoenix Mercury doing the analysis.
Also contributing: Kayla Gray will be courtside and Kate Beirness and Amy Audibert will be in the studio.
The Raptors made the announcement earlier this month, on International Women’s Day.
And tonight’s the night.
Nurse told the CBC’s Myles Dichter she hopes the influence of the broadcast is similar to what she’s experienced as a player for the Women’s National Basketball Association, a league that’s had a huge impact with its social activism, an activism that many say had a profound effect on U.S. politics last year.
Canadian national team member Kia Nurse, who spent last season with the WNBA’s New York Liberty and now plays for the Phoenix Mercury, will be part of the tonight’s first all-female broadcast crew. (The Associated Press/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
“I think people are starting to see how much of an impact we’re having. I mean, we helped flip the Senate,” Nurse said, referring to the work players did to encourage Georgians to vote specifically for Democrat Raphael Warnock and against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the former owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream who spoke out against Black Lives Matter.
But on Wednesday night, the focus will be squarely on basketball, reports USA Today’s Steve Gardner.
“Hopefully, if there are young women who are watching the game with their families, which I’m sure they are, seeing more people that look like them, maybe one of us resonates with them,” Gardner quotes Nurse saying. “And that’s all that matters in this case.”
The whole idea sits extremely well with Raptors star Fred VanVleet, a man who knows a little about being an underdog.
Undrafted out of college, VanVleet wound up playing a key role in the Raptors’ 2018-19 championship season.
“We need to keep empowering our women and lifting them up, and supporting them,” VanVleet told Lori Ewing from The Canadian Press.
“We can shine this spotlight and show that we are with them. They should replace all the men with women and I think the world would be a better place … especially in this [Raptors] organization we try to push forward in that regard and be leaders in empowering our women and lifting them up.”
Meanwhile, there’s another all-female NBA broadcast coming next week–when Golden State plays Chicago on Monday.
Last March, TSN’s chief TV rival, Sportsnet, employed an all-female broadcast crew for a National Hockey League game game between Calgary and Las Vegas.
With files from CBC News (Myles Dichter), The Canadian Press (Lori Ewing)
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