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Nine signs NBL deal

Three year deal will mean 2 Live games on 9GO! and catch-up of all games on 9Now.

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Nine will become an official Australian broadcast partner for the National Basketball League for the next three years in “a revenue sharing arrangement” with the sport.

9GO! will air two games per round with 9Now to screen a Live simulcast along with catch-up rights to all NBL games throughout the season following their conclusion -regardless of the network the game has aired on (ie. FOX Sports).

Under the deal, Nine and the NBL will share the advertising with Nine to take over sponsorship and advertising.

Tom Malone, Nine’s Director of Sport said, “We are thrilled to have Basketball back on Nine and part of the Wide World of Sports family. Larry and the team at NBL have done a terrific job re-building basketball in Australia, and securing some big names for the coming season – it will be great to see Andrew Bogut make his debut for the Sydney Kings.

“Moreover, this signals yet another innovation in sports rights, where the value of Nine’s spectrum has been recognised in lieu of a rights fee and production costs, while Nine has secured exclusive rights to commercialise the broadcast and sponsorship opportunities within and around the game day production, for distribution on Nine, FOX Sports and NBL.”

“We have also structured a commercial partnership beyond the broadcast, to build a business relationship between the NBL and Nine to achieve maximum return for both sporting body and broadcaster in the years ahead.”

NBL Owner and Executive Director Larry Kestelman said: “This is a very exciting announcement for the NBL and Australian basketball. To have a major free to air commercial partner in Nine will help take the NBL to a new level and confirm our status as the best league in the world outside of the NBA.“

“We are delighted that more fans than ever before will be able to watch live basketball on Nine’s free to air channels and enjoy what is a golden period for the game in Australia including two huge games between the Boomers and Team USA next year.

“To be part of one of Australia’ leading media companies will take basketball to a bigger audience than ever before and we can’t wait for the season to start on October 11.”

The NBL 2018/19 season commences on Thursday October 11th.

SBS previously had a Live weekly NBL match, in a deal with FOX Sports.

  • Tagged with NBL

4 Responses

  1. I am cautiously optimistic about this deal. This will be the third time overall Nine Network has associated itself with NBL. Initially it was about 11 or 12 years ago when they had a delayed game from FOX Sports on a Sunday morning or arvo. Then about 2 years ago after NBL signed a deal with FOX Sports, they signed a deal with Nine, they took the FOX Sports feed accompanied with their own in studio hosts. In recent years NBL bought back the Digital rights from FOX Sports and bought production in house. Over the last two years SBS did a good job they took the entire NBL Media feed. What i liked was they were reliable and consistent. Commercial TV is not reliable especially with Live games. Nine Network shows Super Netball games on Nine on Saturday/Sunday arvos. Now if Nine can do a deal with FOX Sports to be able to simulacast Live Boomers World Cup games that would be great. SD vs HD…

  3. So we go from 2 live games a week (Sat 5.30 Viceland and Sun 3pm SBS) and a delayed game (Fri ABC) all in HD to 2 live games a week in SD and the NBL think it is a great deal? I get that 9 attracts more eyeballs than SBS but I’m not certain how it’s a better deal.

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