Club basketball competition the British Basketball League will introduce live global streaming of its games next year through an initiative launched in partnership with sports technology company Hawk-Eye Innovations, sports broadcaster WebcastSport and pay-television broadcaster Sky.
The first stage of the partnership will result in an initial pilot of four BBL events streamed live in January via skysports.com and webcastsport.com. The pilot will commence with a live stream of the BBL Championship clash between the London Lions and Leicester Riders on January 8.
The four pilot BBL events are to be produced by WebcastSport using Hawk-Eye’s SMART production service. WebcastSport will deliver a live, HD-quality sports programme ready for streaming, which will also be available free on demand.
A further element of the collaboration will enable basketball fans worldwide to watch the live streaming of BBL games for free on their PC, and on their tablet or smartphone via the Sky Sports app.
Bob Hope, commercial director of the BBL, said: “This is a hugely exciting first step towards our goal of bringing British basketball to fans worldwide. Not only will the partnership give fans the opportunity of watching live games on their PCs but also on their tablets and smartphones, and all for free. This, coupled with accessibility worldwide, was for us, an important element of this project.”