Australia’s top-tier National Basketball League has renewed its domestic broadcast partnerships with Disney-owned ESPN and commercial broadcaster Network 1, as the league looks to boost its viewership.
Under the three-year renewal, international sports broadcaster ESPN will air every match of the upcoming 2025-26 season live, as well as games from the new in-season tournament, the Ignite Cup, each Wednesday night, as well as the pre-season tournament, ‘The Blitz’.
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In total, ESPN will air 166 live NBL games during the season, along with weekly news and studio coverage.
ESPN is available in Australia through pay-TV operator Foxtel, its streaming service Kayo, and subscription service Fetch TV, as well as pay-TV heavyweight Sky in New Zealand, via carriage deals with the sports broadcaster.
A new element of the deal also sees ESPN available via the Disney+ streaming service, which the league is hoping will significantly boost its viewership figures.
The agreement is similar to a deal between the pair struck ahead of the 2024-25 season.
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By GlobalDataAnnouncing the extension, the NBL emphasised ESPN’s presence on Disney+, noting that with the platform already reaching millions of Australian and New Zealand homes, “the NBL will be exposed to a broader mainstream audience than ever before.”
NBL Group chief executive David Stevenson said: “This new agreement reflects the NBL’s remarkable evolution and increasing popularity and marks another big step forward in the growth of our league.
“Our broadcast audiences have grown by 106% over the past three seasons, and we are confident this new deal will ensure that trend continues as we continue to be the fastest growing professional sporting league in the country.”
Along with ESPN, the NBL said it had also extended its deal with Network 10 for the 2025-26 season, with the commercial broadcaster given rights to air two games each Sunday at 2.30pm (AEDT) on Channel 10 and 4.30pm on 10 Drama.
Last season saw a record 55 sell-out games and more than one million fans attending matches.
The NBL 2025-26 campaign, meanwhile, starts on September 18.
The rights extensions come a week after Foxtel renewed its carriage deal with ESPN, retaining the rights to the broadcaster’s portfolio of sports rights, including basketball’s NBA and WNBA, American football’s NFL, baseball’s MLB, mixed martial arts’ UFC, and ice hockey’s NHL.
