Miami Heat in Spanish on Comcast.

Working to provide the South Florida community with additional opportunities to follow the Miami HEAT in their quest for an NBA Championship, Sun Sports announced today that 10 remaining Miami HEAT home games will be produced and aired in Spanish this season to Comcast customers throughout the South Florida area. The games are the first to be included in this new initiative and plans call for additional games to be made available in Spanish next season and beyond. Additional cable and satellite providers serving homes in the HEAT TV territory may be announced.

Sun Sports, the exclusive regional television partner of the Miami HEAT, will produce the Spanish language telecasts. The games will be available on a dedicated channel to Comcast Cable customers throughout the South Florida region. Most Broward County Comcast customers will see the games on Channel 73, City of Miami customers on Channel 32 and Comcast customers in the rest of Miami-Dade County on Channel 24.

The first Miami HEAT game to be produced regionally in Spanish will be the March 8 game vs. Washington (7:30pm). HEAT Spanish radio announcer Jose Paneda will handle the television play-by-play. Joe Pujala, the team’s Spanish radio host, will serve as analyst, with Raul Striker Jr., who is also the Spanish television voice of the Florida Marlins, serving as sideline reporter and halftime host.

Sun Sports and FSN Florida Vice President and General Manager Cathy Weeden said, “This is another terrific example of how we look for ways to work with our teams, our local affiliates and our sponsors to provide added value and give fans more viewing choices surrounding their favorite home town teams. As a multi-media company, creativity is a cornerstone in our expanding operations and we will continue to explore these and other opportunities as we look to grow our business and our partners’ businesses as well.”

“One of the main advantages of being a local cable provider is that we can customize programming to meet the needs of our communities,” said Comcast’s Senior Regional Vice President for South Florida, Filemon Lopez. “Nothing could be a better fit than offering HEAT basketball in Spanish to South Florida’s growing Hispanic basketball fan base. We know this will be a big hit with our customers and has the potential of opening up the excitement of HEAT basketball to a brand new fan base.”

“We’re thrilled that our partnerships with both Sun Sports and Comcast have led to this opportunity to bring the HEAT to our fans that prefer to experience the HEAT in Spanish,” said Eric Woolworth, President of Business Operations for the HEAT Group. “Along with our radio game broadcasts on WQBA 1140, we will now be offering our Spanish-speaking fans a full HEAT media experience.”