Last Updated on 17 December 2020
The Hungry Jack’s National Basketball League (NBL) has partnered up with Sportradar, the world-leading sports data intelligence and betting data provider.
The multi-year partnership that the Swiss-based sports entertainment company and the NBL have signed will allow worldwide audiences to follow Australia’s basketball competitions, including the semi-professional ones.
The deal will also revolutionize basketball wagering and betting monitoring in Australia. Sportradar is now the official integrity partner to the NBL too, meaning that it will monitor odds movement and betting services across all top-tier men’s and women’s basketball competitions in Australia.
Australian Basketball Will Be Available to Worldwide Audiences
Sportradar will improve the distribution and coverage of the NBL as it will include the Hungry Jack’s National Basketball League in its broadcast and online platforms.
The Swiss company is among the world’s leading over-the-top (OTT) broadcasters and will use its global network, as well as the latest in audio and video technology to offer the best basketball experience to global basketball fans.
Sportradar’s NBL streams will be available to basketball-loving nations such as the USA and China, as well as countries in South East Asia and Europe.
The partnership also includes the best data expertise that audiences can get and a state-of-the-art OTT platform that will feature the broadcasts of semi-professional NBL1 games for the first time ever.
Betting Monitoring Deal
In addition to these broadcasting and data services, the NBL will also benefit from the extensive betting expertise that Sportradar provides.
The Sportradar-NBL deal allows the sports data intelligence company to monitor odds in all Australian men’s and women’s competitions. This means that the NBL, NBL1 and Big V will all be under the watchful eye of Sportradar’s betting experts who will try to determine if there are wagering and gambling irregularities in all ranks of Aussie basketball.
The company will use its market-leading Fraud Detection System to detect illegal betting schemes and will follow 1,781 basketball matches across Australia’s professional and semi-professional basketball scene to see if there are any betting irregularities.
Increased Popularity and Viewership Numbers
Sportradar got interested in the NBL and Australia’s other basketball competitions after it established that Aussie basketball has risen in popularity over the last several years.
The Hungry Jack’s NBL viewership figures have been on the rise, in particular, and they have broken records for online viewership and attendance.
The number of NBL fans has increased so much, that people who follow basketball now think that it is one of the most popular basketball competitions outside the NBA.
A good example of this increase in stature of Australian basketball is the fact that almost two million people watched the game between the New Zealand Breakers and Illawarra Hawks last year.
That game also featured one of the favourites for the first pick in the NBA draft, LaMello Ball, and the recently drafted RJ Hampton too.
Expanding the NBL’s Global Footprint
David Edwards, who is the Director of Sports Media and Partnerships – Oceania, said that the NBL is turning into one of the top basketball leagues in the world, and has an almost ideal mix of talented homegrown players and international stars.
According to him, Sportradar will extend that popularity even further by providing the technology-based and data-driven approach to rights distribution that the company is renowned for.
The OTT platform, powered by Sportradar, will also offer lots of live and VOD matches across Australia’s state leagues, which means that basketball fans will have the chance to see the next generation of Australian basketball talent first-hand.
