Emmy winners Sarah Kustok and Michael Grady will serve as lead analysts and play-by-play announcers of the Cup Championship.
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer and the University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley will contribute as second analysts.
Veteran basketball journalist Zora Stephenson will be the sideline journalist for the competition
The WNBA Commissioner’s championship game presented by Coinbase, featuring Chicago Sky vs Las Vegas Aces, will be streaming exclusively on Prime Video for the second year in a row.
NEW YORK – July 20, 2022 – Today, Prime Video and the National Women’s Basketball Association (WNBA) announced their broadcast team for the second annual WNBA Commissioner’s Championship game presented by Coinbase, on air exclusively on Prime Video on Tuesday July. 26 at 8:30 p.m. ET. Emmy winners Sarah Kustok and Michael Grady will serve as analysts and play-by-play announcers, while Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer and University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley , also contribute as analysts.
This year, WNBA defending champion Chicago Sky and Las Vegas Axis will face off in the 2022 Championship at Chicago’s Wintrust Arena. The Commissioner’s Cup is a season-long competition that designates a number of matches in the first half of the season – 10 per team – as a Cup game. Teams with the record of each conference in the cup game then compete in the Commissioner’s Cup Championship Game presented by Coinbase for a $ 500,000 prize pool. Two tiebreakers were needed to decide the hosts for this year’s championship, in which Sky gained the home advantage after recording the highest win percentage in all regular season games through July 7. , at 16-6.
Kustok of YES Network, a Chicago native and basketball broadcast veteran, will serve as lead analyst for the game. Kustok is a four-time Emmy winner and has served as YES Network’s primary game analyst for the Brooklyn Nets since 2017, after five years as a court reporter for the team. In addition to his work with YES Network, he is a regular contributor to FS1’s men’s regular season broadcasts, FOX.
Sports 1’s First Things First morning show, Sirius XM NBA Radio, We Need to Talk on CBS Sports Network, and the NBA Flashback podcast on iHeart Radio. In 2020, Kustok was named to Cynopsis Media’s “Top Women in Sports” list, which recognizes top women in the media.
Grady will be the play-by-play announcer for the Commissioner’s title game. Grady joined the YES Network in September 2017 as its Brooklyn Nets reporter, and currently manages play-by-play roles for YES ’WNBA New York Liberty broadcasts. He won a New York Emmy Award in 2019 as part of the coverage of the YES season and was nominated for a Sports Reporter Emmy in 2021. Grady also hosts the interview of the show Appreciate You on the platforms YES digital and hosts host a show on SiriusXM. .
Staley will serve as analyst for the game alongside Kustok and Grady. A former six-time WNBA All-Star and three-time Olympic gold medalist during his playing career, Staley has served as NCAA basketball coach for more than 20 seasons, leading the South Carolina Gamecocks to the National Basketball Championship. NCAA Women in 2017 is 2022..
Zora Stephenson, who serves as a side reporter for the Milwaukee Bucks on Bally Sports Wisconsin, will be the side reporter in the Commissioner’s Cup. Stephenson made history last season when she became the first woman to play-by-play for the Bucks when she was replaced by Jim Paschke during the team’s game against the Atlanta Hawks at Fiserv Forum on April 9. .
“We are honored to be the home of the WNBA Commissioner’s Championship for the second year in a row,” said Marie Donoghue, vice president of Global Sports Video at Amazon. “With All-Star players including Chicago’s Candace Parker and Las Vegas’ Kelsey Plum, and first-class talent in the air to call the game, WNBA fans will have a lot to gather in Prime Video cum ‘and the Chicago Sky face Las Vegas. Vegas Aces for the 2022 Cup Championship title. “
Prime Video broadcasts a total of 17 nationally televised WNBA games in the season, and about 30 Seattle Storm games in the venue in Washington State, during the 2022 season. On July 26, three more games will air on Prime Video for the remainder of the WNBA season, in addition to selecting Seattle Storm’s remaining games to regional fans.
The WNBA Cup Championship Game presented by Coinbase on Prime Video will be available on hundreds of compatible devices worldwide as part of a Prime membership (excluding China, Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Finland and Germany) included in the web. or using the Prime Video app on smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, game consoles, and select smart TVs. A complete list of compatible display devices can be found here.
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Prime Video supports a growth of live sports around the world, including Thursday Night Football, WNBA, New York Yankees and Seattle Sounders FC in the United States; Premier League in the United Kingdom; US Open Tennis, ATP, and WTA in the United Kingdom and Ireland; UEFA Champions League football in Germany is in Italy; Roland Garros is Ligue 1 in France; Australian swimming in the world; and New Zealand Cricket in India. While availability varies by market, fans can also subscribe to streaming services such as Eurosport, FOX Sports (Mexico), LaLigaTV, MLB.TV, NBA League Pass, NBA TV, and Premiere FC (Brazil) via Prime Video Channels. This is in addition to a selection of Amazon Original All or Nothing sports docuseries including All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur, All or Nothing: Juventus, All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs, and All or Nothing seasons with the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL, The Los Angeles Rams, Dallas Cowboys, Carolina Panthers and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as the NCAA Michigan Wolverines football team.
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The WNBA, which began its 26th season on May 6, 2022, is a bold and progressive basketball league that represents the power of women. With 12 teams, the W is a unique sports property that combines competition and entertainment with a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and social responsibility. Through its world-class athletes, in-game fan experience, TV and digital broadcasts, digital and social content and community outreach programs, the league celebrates and elevates the game of basketball and the culture around it.
In 2020, the WNBA and the National Association of Women’s Basketball Players (WNBPA) signed a groundbreaking eight-year CBA that sets a new course for women’s basketball – and women’s sports in general – with a focus on increased player compensation, improved player experience, expanded career development opportunities and resources specifically tailored to the female professional athlete. Key elements of the agreement are supported by the league’s partnership platform, WNBA Changemakers, with AT&T, the WNBA’s Marquee Partner and inaugural Changemaker, as well as its inaugural partners Changemakers Deloitte and NIKE, Inc., and the successive additions to Google and U.S. Bank. During the 2020 season, the WNBA and the WNBPA launched the WNBA Justice Movement which forms the Social Justice Council with the mission of being a driving force for the necessary change and to continue conversations about race and the rights of vote, among other important social issues.
