Sport1 pounces for Basketball Bundesliga rights

German sports broadcaster Sport1 has acquired the free-to-air rights to the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL), the top division of the sport in Germany, after agreeing a two-year deal with the league’s rights-holder, telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom.

Sport1 has broadcast BBL games since 2009 and its new deal with Deutsche Telekom will take in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.

Sport1 will show 34 games from the regular season of the league and 14 games from the playoffs. This total includes two clashes from the finals – to be mutually agreed with Deutsche Telekom before the start of the season – and the first two games of the respective playoff fixtures in the quarter and semi-finals.

In June, Deutsche Telekom agreed a four-year deal for the media rights to the BBL. The agreement, which includes both national and international rights, commences from the 2014-15 season and runs through to the 2017-18 campaign.

Deutsche Telekom will exploit the rights through its IPTV platform Entertain and has promised to broadcast all games live – a first for the league. All live games broadcast by Sport1 will also be available simultaneously on the platforms of Deutsche Telekom.

Dr. Henning Stiegenroth, head of sports marketing at Deutsche Telekom, said: “The Beko BBL offers major media development opportunities, which we will make use of. We want to give basketball a broad market positioning. This is why it’s important to us that, as well as the planned extensive pay content, the fans can also still watch selected games on free-TV.”