IMG Arena bolsters streaming rights with six-year Brazilian basketball deal

IMG Arena, the sports betting arm of the IMG agency, has agreed a six-season extension to its global live streaming deal with Liga Nacional de Basquete, the top tier of Brazilian club basketball.

The deal, which does not include Brazil, covers an increased number of NBB league matches and the Copa Super 8 competition.

Nilo Guimarães, president of LNB, said: “We take great pleasure in announcing the renewal of the partnership in such a difficult and challenging moment for the entire society.

“The vote of trust received by IMG Arena, the leading provider to the sports betting industry indicates that NBB has been delivering, year-on-year, a more solid and relevant product within the sports business. These are the results of an innovative initiative created with IMG Arena three years ago.”

In basketball, IMG Arena also sells the EuroLeague betting streaming rights as part of its long-term tie-up with the property.

The LNB contract marks the latest deal reached by IMG Arena this year.

World Table Tennis, the new commercial arm of the International Table Tennis Federation, last month appointed IMG in a wide-ranging and long-term agreement that includes international media rights sales and broadcast production oversight of WTT events. The agreement begins in January 2021 and also includes betting streaming and data rights for IMG Arena and non-exclusive sponsorship sales.

In May, it was announced that IMG Arena would begin offering bookmakers a virtual sports betting product for the Nascar US stock car racing series, along with distributing the international betting streaming rights for the first time.

In March, Confédération Européenne de Volleyball (CEV), the sport’s governing body in Europe, announced its second high-profile rights agreement in as many weeks in a long-term betting streaming and data rights deal with IMG Arena.

In February, IMG Arena expanded its deal with ice hockey’s NHL by securing rights to provide US sports betting operators with live streams of select out-of-market games.

Launched in December 2008, the LNB brought together the top tiers of Brazilian professional basketball in an effort to make the sport the second most popular in Brazil, behind football.