Viacom18 entered into a multi-year broadcasting agreement with the National Basketball Association (NBA) on Friday. The agreement gives Viacom18 broadcast the NBA games in Hindi and English across its channels including Vh1 and MTV, together with streaming the games on its over-the-top platforms including Voot and JioTV.
Beginning with the NBA's 75th-anniversary session in 2021-22, Viacom18 would provide live coverage of the association's regular season and marquee events in English and Hindi. The coverage would include live matches, NBA all-star, the NBA Play-in tournament, the NBA playoffs, daily highlights and the finals. The broadcaster would also be creating original NBA-themed programs across its network.
The chief executive of sports at Viacom18, Anil Jayaraj said the sport is increasingly gaining traction in the country and with this partnership, they could make basketball a mainstream sport.
Head of Youth, Music and Entertainment at Viacom18, Anshul Alilawadi added that during the course of the association, they would be initiating heavily localised marketing outreach and consumer connect programmes to create fandom for the sport.
In September this year, Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh was appointed the brand ambassador of the NBA in the country. Moreover, the NBA had announced a collaboration with the Lakmé Fashion Week to celebrate the league's landmark 75th anniversary season.
Viacom18 is a 51:49 joint venture partnership between Network18 Media Investments owned by Reliance Industries, and North American mass media conglomerate ViacomCBS.
The NBA is a global sports and media business built around four professional sports leagues -- the National Basketball Association, the Women's National Basketball Association, the NBA G League and the NBA 2K League. It along with the International Basketball Federation also jointly operates the Basketball Africa League.
The NBA has established an international presence with games and programming available in 215 countries and territories in over 50 languages, and merchandise for sale in over 200 countries and territories on all the continents.
(With inputs from PTI)
