FIBA, the International Basketball Federation, and Eleven Sports on Wednesday/Thursday announced a five-year agreement that will see the global sports provider bring live and exclusive coverage of the 2017-2021 cycle of FIBA events to Chinese Taipei.
The agreement is in effect for FIBA’s major national team competitions, including the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 and its Qualifiers, the 2017 and 2021 (including the Qualifiers) editions of the FIBA Asia Cup, the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2018, the 2017, 2019 and 2021 editions of the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup as well as the FIBA U17 and U19 Basketball World Cups (Men and Women).
Both the men’s and women’s FIBA Asia Cups 2017 will feature Chinese Taipei teams including local stars Liu Zheng, Chou Yi Xiang, Peng Shi Qing and Joy Pao – underlining ELEVEN’s commitment to its localised strategy to deliver top class content that is relevant to local fans.
The FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 in China will be the biggest edition of FIBA’s flagship event with a record 32 participating teams playing 92 games over 16 days. It will be the first time the competition is to be played in China – highlighting the growing popularity of basketball across the region.
“We are thrilled to bring regular world class national team basketball action to fans in Chinese Taipei by securing this five-year agreement with FIBA,” said Danny Menken, Group Managing Director, ELEVEN SPORTS. “This is another great step forward for ELEVEN SPORTS that is perfectly aligned to our strategy to reach every fan with strong localized content that is relevant and popular in the domestic market and the new FIBA Calendar with home and away qualification games is certainly going to deliver this.”
Patrick Baumann, FIBA Secretary General and International Olympic Committee (IOC) Member, said: “Thanks to ELEVEN SPORTS, fans of Chinese Taipei’s men’s and women’s teams can look forward to watching their heroes in action over the next five years as well as enjoy some of the very best that national team basketball all around the world has to offer.”
The agreement was brokered by FIBA Media, the strategic partnership between FIBA and Perform, which continues to secure multi-year agreements related to FIBA’s new calendar of events.