Brazilian women’s basketball league secures free-to-air return

Brazil’s top women’s basketball league, the LBF, has secured a return to free-to-air television through a rights deal with TV Cultura.

The contract, which was signed ahead of the start of the 2020 LBF season on Sunday, grants TV Cultura the rights to broadcast one game from each round of the league.

These broadcasts will have a fixed scheduling of 2pm on Sundays, although the deal commenced with Sunday’s meeting between Ituano Basquete and Santo André/Apaba, which tipped off at 3pm.

TVN Sports, the Brazilian live-streaming company, is the LBF’s main rights-holder, providing coverage of games through a platform accessed via the league’s official website.

TV Cultura joins TVN Sports for 2020 after pay-television broadcaster ESPN was the secondary rights-holder in 2019. Free-to-air broadcaster TV Gazeta provided coverage alongside TV NSports in 2018.

Ricardo Molina, president of LBF, said: “The agreement with TV Cultura will enhance the visibility and growth of the sport and follows the effort made by LBF in the last two years, when the league started to have 100 per cent of games broadcast, between television and internet.”