WORLD SCREEN
The National Basketball Association (NBA), the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the Australian free-to-air broadcaster SBS have signed a multiyear agreement to broadcast live NBA and WNBA games to a nationwide audience.
Per the deal, SBS will broadcast two live, regular-season NBA games per week in HD on its SBS VICELAND channel and on its streaming platform SBS On Demand beginning with the 2019-20 season. NBA games will also be available on-demand on SBS On Demand and additional NBA content will be featured on SBS’s sport website. Further, SBS will broadcast one live WNBA game per week on SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand starting with the 2020 season, throughout the regular season and with a selection of games from the first three rounds of playoffs.
Fourteen players from Australia were on NBA rosters during the 2018-19 season, while the 2019 WNBA season featured eight players from Australia on opening-night rosters.
SBS Managing Director James Taylor said: “Premium international sports continue to be a focus of SBS’s offering and we are thrilled to partner with the NBA and the WNBA to bring live coverage back to Australians for free. The NBA and the WNBA are among the world’s most diverse leagues and basketball is an increasingly popular sport. Building on our recently announced deal with the NBL, these partnerships with the NBA and the WNBA make SBS the exclusive free-to-air home of basketball in Australia and are a great opportunity to bring new audiences, particularly younger viewers, to SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand.”
Ramez Sheikh, NBA Asia’s head of global content and media distribution, added: “We are excited to partner with SBS to bring NBA and WNBA games and programming to a nationwide audience on free-to-air television. These partnerships show that fans in Australia have a growing demand for basketball content, and beginning next season, they will enjoy outstanding NBA and WNBA coverage on SBS across broadcast and digital.”
