DJ Jazzy Jeff On Five

DJ Jazzy Jeff will be Channel Five’s special guest during their coverage of the NBA pre-season game between Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves in London. The game at the O2 Arena will be shown live on Five US on October 10. 

Five’s basketball presenter Mark Webster is delighted: “He’s over here on a DJ tour and he has turned down a night’s DJ’ing and the money he gets for that to come and do the presentation of the game for less money because he fucking loves basketball. 

“He’ll go down and talk to Garnett and Paul Pierce and they’re going to know him cause he is Jazzy Jeff for Christ sakes.” 

Mark, who is entering his third year covering the NBA for Channel Five, also told postingup.co.uk that despite the fact that Sky Sports will not be showing NBA basketball this season, there are no plans at the moment to add to the channel’s coverage of the sport. 

He says: “Channel Five do all the American sports if you’re prepared to count MLS. There is not the time to do it (more basketball). Five US may give us the opportunity to show a second game but I don’t think we’ll start the season like that.” 

Positive News 

There is positive news for fans in the UK, Mark tells us: “The NBA have really re-activated their interest in trying to sell the game to Europe in general. London or England became crucial when we got the Olympics. You could see the change.  

“There is going to be an NBA office in London again which there hasn’t been for probably ten years and that’s because they know full well they want to exploit it all the way through until 2012 and that is the big plan for them.” 

The game in London was made very interesting by the move of superstar Kevin Garnett from the Timberwolves to the Celtics this summer. Garnett’s first game against the team who drafted him in 1995 will mean a media frenzy and Mark can not wait for the game. 

He says: “It will be really bloody good. The atmosphere will be amazing. It is testament to the success the NBA has had in the last two or three years in re-building itself here. There are a lot of factors for this success but you will see all those factors come into one room for two hours and the place will be mental, it will be fantastic. 

“Now it doesn’t matter that this is a pre-season game. The American television coverage is going to be enormous we might get nudged out of the way.” 

Mark was instrumental in the signing of Jazzy Jeff for the show and explains that showing “basketball as a phenomenon rather than simply as a sport” is crucial. He cites the appearance of rapper The Game on one of Five’s games last year as a good example. “That was one of our best viewed shows because there is that crossover, the music the fashion, the basketball, they’re intertwined and you’ve got a strong new hot act like The Game who loves basketball. Baron Davis is his kid’s god parent. This is gold dust, you don’t waste it.

We ran it all and it was really positive.” Five’s NBA regular season coverage will begin on opening night on October 30.