NBA.com reported 4,650,000 visitors for its All-Star
Game coverage during the week of February 7-13. The total
breaks the site's previous record for weekly usage. NBA.com
also broke single-day records by attracting 740,000 visitors
registering 7.8 million impressions on February 9 (NBA.com).
NBA.COM TV REVIEWED: Sports Illustrated's John Walters
notes the "cooperation" of the league's "biggest studs" with
NBA.com TV during its All-Star Game coverage and writes,
"While NBC and TNT may be in bed with the NBA, NBA.com TV is
wearing the league's pajamas." Walters writes that NBA
players "can assume that queries from the likes of [NBA.com
TV reporter Carlos] Diaz will be nonconfrontational." But
Diaz says, "I've never felt limited. If the facts are
there, we are going to report them." Walters: "Perhaps, but
at last weekend's festivities, in-your-face journalism was
absent. Diaz jovially emceed events." Walters adds,
"Stylistically NBA.com TV had the feel of 'The Blair Witch
Project'. ... Just remember that 'Blair Witch' was a hoax
and that NBA.com TV, for all its unparalleled access, less
resembles the Fourth Estate than it does Orwell's Ministry
of Truth" (SI, 2/21 issue).
