NBL season on a roll in joint TV rights deal

Larry Kestelman’s National Basketball League has struck a unique two-year broadcasting deal.

NBL owner Larry Kestelman. Picture: Zak Simmonds

Larry Kestelman’s National Basketball League has struck a unique two-year broadcasting deal that will see more than half its matches shown on the SBS Viceland free-to-air channel and the remainder on the Australian channels of US sports media giant ESPN.

The NBL will announce the deal today, representing a shift from showing some games on Nine Entertainment and all on Fox Sports last year, but management claim it represents more free-to-air coverage, with 67 games on SBS Viceland.

Viewers will also be able to stream all 126 matches live via the SBS-on-demand service.

ESPN’s deal makes the NBL the first major Australian sport aired live in prime time on its two Australian channels, which already hold local rights for the elite US National Basketball Association. The move could also see some NBA matches on free-to-air via SBS Viceland later in the year, if a deal can be struck for the start of the US 2019-20 season.

But in what could be a portent of things to come for several sports and their broadcast revenue, Australian basketball has been unable to attract a rights fee and will instead enter a revenue sharing agreement with SBS and ESPN.

That means the league will share advertising income with the broadcasters, though the NBL — which is owned by Kestelman — will absorb production costs.

Broadcasters have indicated the days of huge rises in sports rights could be coming to an end as television companies rein in their spending in the face of falling ratings and advertising revenue in a fragmented viewing market.

Netball Australia has shown revenue-sharing can work for smaller sports, with its Super Netball broadcast deal with Nine and Telstra resulting in a 70 per cent rise in overall revenue.

The NBL rights, however, are being packaged with the Australian Boomers men’s national team and Opals women’s team games, including fixtures against the US national team at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium next month.

Mr Kestelman had hoped combining his league’s rights with national team games — as part of a commercial agreement struck with governing body Basketball Australia — would lead to a lucrative rights deal being stuck.

But he told The Australian he was satisfied with the deal.

“We have control of our commercial inventory so we can do deals with our sponsors at the venue, with what they do digitally, with their media spend and so on,” he said. “So we are a one-stop shop for them and they don’t have to compete with others.

“Yes, I would have liked (rights fees) and we are starting to get some from overseas and also via social media. But it is not happening as quickly as I would have liked. And we are different from other sports, who have been getting big fees that I think can only go backwards from here.”

Mr Kestelman said the league was also poised to sign further deals to distribute game content via social media and would package highlights and video clips from its matches.

ESPN’s Australia and New Zealand general manager Haydn Arndt said his channel’s NBL coverage, which will be 59 games shown after 7.30pm, would be added to the existing NBA, women’s WNBA and US college basketball matches.

“We love what the NBL are doing to grow the league and attract high-profile talent to our home courts — we saw it last year with Andrew Bogut’s return,” he said. “Basketball is booming in Australia and the NBL is primed for growth. We’re very happy to be in business with them.”

ESPN is carried on Foxtel and Kayo in Australia.

SBS managing director James Taylor said: “With around one million Australians playing basketball, it’s one of the nation’s leading team sports for participation and we look forward to bringing fans every memorable minute of one of the country’s fastest-growing leagues.”