australia NBL Twitch

NBL And Twitch Strike Major Streaming Deal

October 11, 2019

Australia’s National Basketball League will have every game streamed on Twitch for the next two seasons.

The NBL’s recent fixture between the Illawarra Hawks, who acquired prospective high NBA Draft pick LaMelo Ball this season, and Brisbane Bullets was viewed by over a million people in the USA via Facebook.

Twitch had clearly noticed this, particularly after their service had 184,000 unique viewers for Illawarra’s recent game against the Peth Wildcats at the NBL Blitz in Tasmania, and have decided to act by signing a two-year deal with the league.

The NBL gained a huge boost this season with both LaMelo Ball and RJ Hunter, another projected early NBA Draft selection in 2020, both opting to forgo college basketball in the United States to play professionally for a year down under.

“Our partnership with Twitch is truly revolutionary for Australian sport and reinforces the NBL’s status as a global entertainment product,” NBL Commissioner Jeremy Loeliger said, “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 added, “Equally as innovative is that you’ll be able to do more to engage with the broadcast more than ever before. Delve into live stats, chat with other viewers and with the host of the stream, participate in live Q&A and competitions and even buy merchandise all without having to leave the live game.”

Head of Sports Verticals at Twitch, Eric Brunner said: “Extending our basketball content to include the next full season of one of the top professional leagues in the world is an obviously exciting way to further engage with what is proving to be a very strong and growing fandom on our service.

“It’s awesome to work with the NBL as the first sports body in Australia to truly understand the power of building a global community on Twitch.”

 

australia NBL Twitch