Modern Times Group, the multi-territory commercial and pay-television broadcaster, has agreed a five-year extension to its rights deal with the International Basketball Federation (Fiba) for the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The exclusive rights agreement covers Fiba’s leading men’s and women’s competitions from 2017 to 2021.
The renewal comes with Fiba’s Competition System 2017+ set to launch in November. Under the new system, teams across the globe will play regular official games in qualifying windows held year-round to qualify for the 2019 World Cup and 2021 Continental Cups, including EuroBasket 2021.
MTG will host broadcast qualification games and show all key encounters on free-to-air channel TV3, pay-television sport channel Viasat Sport Baltic and digital pay platform Viaplay.
The agreement is in place for EuroBasket 2017, the 2019 World Cup qualifiers and final round, and the EuroBasket 2021 qualifiers and final round on the men's side. On the women's side, it includes the 2017, 2019 and 2021 editions of EuroBasket Women and the 2018 Women's World Cup. It also covers the Olympic qualifying tournaments for men and women for the 2020 summer Games in Tokyo.
TV3 will show all of the men’s national team qualifiers for the 2019 World Cup and EuroBasket 2021, as well as final round games at both tournaments, including the semi-finals and finals. Viasat Sport Baltic will show all key games across both men's and women's competitions, while Viaplay will provide access to all games live on all devices across the Baltics.
MTG and Fiba have partnered since 2007. The new agreement was brokered by Fiba Media, the strategic partnership between the governing body and digital media specialist Perform, which is in the process of securing long-term agreements around the world for the new Fiba competition calendar which begins this summer.