In perhaps the biggest deal yet landed by the league, the National Basketball League (NBL) and Twitch have struck a two-year deal for games to be made available globally by the streaming site.
NBL commissioner Jeremy Loeliger released a statement on the deal, shared via The Sydney Morning Herald:
“Our partnership with Twitch is truly revolutionary for Australian sport and reinforces the NBL’s status as a global entertainment product. Not only does it take our product to an entirely new audience all around the world, but by allowing our games to be co-streamed by members of the Twitch community, it also delivers those games in a new way that is more engaging for that audience. People who have never heard of the NBL before will be logging in to see their favourite streamers presenting our content. It’s a very exciting development.”
Loeliger also noted that the deal is believed to be the first Australian competition streamed on Twitch.
The league has already seen huge bumps in viewership one week into the regular season. As noted in the same Sydney Morning Herald article, the Round One game between Illawarra and Brisbane saw 184,000 unique visitors on Twitch. Across all platforms, the game broke viewership records for the NBL.
Making it a two-year deal, meanwhile, is a shrewd business move by the NBL. Ball and RJ Hampton are obviously huge draws this season but both are one-and-done prospects that won’t be around next season. Having the league still linked to a streaming service after losing huge draws is great for the league moving forward as well.
