Basketball Australia has said the Women’s National Basketball League will receive landmark coverage in 2019-20 as it enters the final season of its current rights deal with pay-television broadcaster Fox Sports.
Fox will remain the main broadcast partner of the WNBL for the third season in a row, with a commitment to broadcast one match every round, which will also be streamed on the Kayo platform.
In addition, for the first time, every WNBL game will be available live on either Fox Sports or a brand-new live streaming service available via the WNBL website.
The live streaming will be trialled through the first two rounds of the 2019-20 season, with select games available, before an expected full launch at the commencement of round three. The 84-game WNBL regular season will run from tomorrow (Friday) through to February 1, with the Finals Series taking place from February 15 to March 8.
Following three seasons without free-to-air coverage, the WNBL was aired by public-service broadcaster SBS in the 2018-19 season. The deal was completed with Fox Sports, which acquired WNBL rights in Australia from Basketball Australia in a three-season deal, from 2017-18 to 2019-20.
Fox broadcast and streamed one game each week, plus every finals game live, while SBS simulcast nine regular-season games live on Saturdays at 3pm.