The NZ National Basketball League has secured a ground-breaking deal with US sports giant ESPN to broadcast all of its games across the US.
All 56 games games in the 'Showdown' will air live on ESPN 3 in what general manager Justin Nelson calls a "triumph" for basketball in New Zealand.
As first reported by Newshub, the announcement comes just hours before the competition tips off at West Auckland's Trusts Stadium.
"This is massive," says Nelson. "All 56 games and many hours of New Zealand broadcast sport will be live to the vast sport-hungry audience throughout the US.
"The chance for New Zealand basketball to be shown on ESPN is incredible for our players, the seven competing teams and all of our sponsors.
"This news should reinforce to everyone that basketball is a global sport, and we have the ability to take our game and our commercial partners right around the world. New Zealand basketball is absolutely worth investing in, it is a booming sport across more than two hundred countries.
"This is also an opportunity for us to showcase Auckland and New Zealand globally... we can’t wait to show everyone this beautiful part of the world."
Nelson says the league's inaugural draft last week had caught the attention of a handful of international broadcasters, and the negotiations had flowed from there.
"People abroad started to notice the NBL, they heard about the new format, especially with the draft," he adds.
"News of the concept made some headlines overseas and then the phone started to ring.
The creation of an online streaming platform had already opened the the door for the league to access a new range of basketball-starved fans across the globe, as well as entirely new stream of revenue to be shared among the league, teams, and players.
That exposure is set to soar via ESPN, allowing players an even larger platform to showcase their talents to profressional scouts.
"The biggest winners from the ESPN agreement are those who absolutely deserve every bit of the attention coming their way – the players," Nelson notes. "They are the stars of the show.
"The sacrifice they have made to play cannot be understated. We don’t have the same dollars as others, we don’t have the same funding as others, but we’re digging deep, we’re in it together and we’re fighting for the survival of our national league.
"It’s a team effort and the NBL team are extremely proud of every one of them and the seven teams that have backed it."
The six-week league begins with a double header between the Nelson Giants and the Taranaki Mountainairs, followed by the Canterbury Rams against the Auckland Huskies.
