NBL Armed for “Media Wars”

Skyrocketing television ratings and soaring popularity have the NBL at the ready when it comes to the sporting landscape’s “media wars”.

“I feel like this year we have arrived,” League owner Larry Kestelman told Newscorp.

“We’ve finally got to the critical mass that I feel like we’re a true worthwhile contender in what heavyweight matches are around media wars — we’re in the game now.”

Live games are up almost 50 per cent on last season and games are now outrating most the NBA broadcasts. Reach across ESPN and Kayo has boomed to 1.4 million people, representing an uplift of nearly 40 per cent, with almost half of the audience, women.

“Before, we were maybe a little bit of a second-tier product on television. A decade ago it was a product that didn’t resonate on the screen,” Kestelman explained.

“But we’ve done a lot of work to learn how to story tell better, improve what the product looks like, we’ve innovated and what you see now is the next level of where basketball has been.”

But it’s not only on TV where significant growth has been realised with the league a huge hit with young people and families, highlighted by it surpassing the AFL on TikTok. 

With an estimated five million basketball fans in Australia, no other sport is as popular in terms of soaring interest and avidity according to a recent Nielsen survey. 

“The growth potential is endless, we’ve got a long, long way to grow,” he said.

“If we can grow by 20-30 per cent a year, that’s our goal.

“The sport grows through media partners, so we’ve got News Corp, we’ve got ESPN, we feel like we have a good group behind us with Kayo that will deliver that growth for us.”