The 76ers are on a four-game losing streak, but the team's "woes aren’t stopping ESPN from going all-in with an ambitious plan" to cover them from "morning to night" ahead of their Friday matchup with the Thunder, according to Rob Tornoe of the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER. That game airs on ESPN at 7:00pm ET, and there is a plan to cover the Sixers on Friday across all ESPN properties, from "Golic & Wingo" and "First Take" in the morning to "The Ryen Russillo Show" and "SC6" in the evening, with a "healthy dose of Snapchat and Twitter thrown in." It is the "brainchild" of ESPN Senior VP/Production & Remote Events Mark Gross. Gross said that he "hatched the idea back in the preseason" during conversations with NBA Entertainment Senior VP/Original Production Dion Cocoros, and sees the daylong plan as a "way to experiment with the network’s NBA coverage." Gross: "I hope to give people a sense of what it’s like on game day for the Sixers, from morning to noon to right before tipoff. Maybe it turns into a nice little franchise for us and the league, and it’s something we trying to do annually or a couple times a year." ESPN "isn’t just planning on producing the typical three-to-five minute segments that normally air on the network’s shows." Gross said that he is "looking for bits that might make interesting 20-to-30 second elements, such as shooting b-roll footage of Sixers head coach Brett Brown’s 4 a.m. run ahead of home games and covering the team’s Thursday practice." Other highlights of the coverage will include ESPN's Doris Burke sitting down for "one-on-one interviews" with Sixers G Ben Simmons and President of Basketball Operations Bryan Colangelo. Also, Sixers CEO Scott O'Neil is "appearing for an interview" on Russillo's show on ESPN Radio (PHILLY.com, 12/11).
