Olympic Channel to air all original broadcasts of 1992 Dream Team's gold medal run
We live in an endless era of basketball debates—LeBron versus Durant, should you or should you not trust The Process, and is Danny Ainge crazy or crazy like a leprechaun? Here’s the one thing most pro basketball fans can agree on is this: The 1992 United States Olympic Team is the greatest in the history of the sport.
Multiple generations of basketball fans—especially under 25—have likely never watched the team play in full. But you are about to get a great treat if you are a hoops junkie.
The upcoming Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, which is launching Saturday on a number of cable systems and streaming services, will air all eight original broadcasts on eight consecutive nights in primetime this August. The games debut on Monday, Aug. 28, at 8 p.m. ET and will culminate with an 11-hour marathon on Labor Day on Sept. 4.
• A 1992 Dream Team scrimmage was the greatest game nobody ever saw
During NBC’s 1992 Olympics coverage, most of the early round games the Dream Team played did not air in full outside of NBC’s Triplecast, which was a pay-per-view joint venture between NBC and Cablevision during the Barcelona Games. The network said the Olympic Channel’s re-airing features the original commentary teams that called the action including Marv Albert alongside analyst Mike Fratello and reporter Quinn Buckner, and the team of the late Chick Hearn and Steve Jones.
The roster of the 1992 team reads like a wing of the Basketball Hall of Fame: Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Christian Laettner, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson and John Stockton. The late Chuck Daly served as head coach, alongside assistant coaches P.J. Carlesimo, Mike Krzyzewski and Lenny Wilkens. It should be a fun watch.
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NBC Sports said the Olympic Channel, a partnership between the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee, and NBCUniversal, will be available in more than 35 million homes at launch. The channel will be distributed via outlets including Altice, AT&T DirecTV, Comcast, Spectrum, Verizon, DirecTV Now, Fubo, Hulu, Sony PlayStation Vue and YouTube TV. NBC said the first month of programming on Olympic Channel will include the 2017 FINA World Swimming and Diving Championships from Budapest, the IAAF Track and Field World Championships from London, and the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships from Vienna.