Sky Italia has signed a new four-year deal with the US’s National Basketball Association that will allow the Italian pay-TV broadcaster to air more than 300 regular-season matches live.
Sky Italia will exploit the rights on its dedicated NBA channel – Sky Sport NBA – which will show at least one league match per day, as well as highlights and analysis shows. This will include 48 weekend primetime matches as part on “NBA Saturdays” and “NBA Sundays”.
The pay-TV broadcaster also has the exclusive Italian rights to the whole range of NBA properties, including the annual NBA All-Star game, the playoffs, conference and overall finals matches.
Sky Italia will continue its role running the NBA’s Italian website at sport.sky.it/nba which will host “extensive video highlights” along with news, stats, scores, in-depth analysis and content produced specifically for that platform.
The NBA portion of Sky Italia’s website was incorporated in 2016 after the pay-television broadcaster signed a two-year deal with the league which tightened its stranglehold on NBA coverage in Italy. Previously, access to the NBA site was exclusively via the website of Italian sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport.
Sky’s dedicated NBA channel launched in 2018 as part of Sky Italia’s wider overhaul of its channels which saw a range of similar channels created.
Marzio Perrelli, executive vice-president at Sky Sport, said: “Sky remains the point of reference for the many NBA fans in Italy and will ensure the usual exceptional coverage, with even more matches in primetime and an enhanced editorial quality.”