Yahoo Sports Becomes NBA Official Marketing Partner

The NBA and Yahoo Sports will develop a range of sports and fantasy betting products, integrations and content together as Yahoo is now the official marketing partner for the association.

Yahoo Joins as NBA’s Official Marketing Sponsor

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has signed up a deal with Yahoo Sports with the latter becoming the association’s official marketing partner. The two entities will now work on a range of fantasy and sports betting activities.

Yahoo will continue to offer the exclusive fantasy game for the NBA as well as other tailored NBA daily fantasy and sports betting integrations, the companies announced on the occasion of the partnership.

As per the agreement, Yahoo will be able to expand NBA content across all of its platforms, boosting the association’s footprint. Yahoo will also tap into various ways of increasing the reach of the association, including out-of-market games thanks to the NBA League Pass, as well as engaging fantasy betting fans with digital betting overlays.

Boosting Content Footprint

To cement their partnership, Yahoo Sports and the NBA will work together on a series of productions, including two shows dedicated exclusively on sports and fantasy betting. The shows will debut to coincide with the NBA Conference and NBA Finals, often featuring five to seven game series.

Yahoo will use official NBA footage to create exclusive recaps and highlights to help sports bettors make better-informed choices in the short and long term. Bill Koenig, global content and media distributor for the NBA, said that the NBA would have new ways to engage with NBA fans.

Integration the NBA into Virtual Reality

Not only that, but the NBA has already tapped the Yahoo-owned Verizon to stream games in Virtual Reality (VR). There will be various fantasy games and sports betting integrations, gaming-focused content, and more opportunities to experience the games viscerally, Koening explained.

Yahoo Sports will become the official sponsor for marquee NBA events, such as the NBA Pick’Em: Playoffs Bracket Challenge, an odds and picks game asking players to make predictions about the outcome of certain contests.

Yahoo Sports will also be integrated with the NBA.com, the NBA App, NBA TV, and all NBA Digital platforms present and future while the partnership still lasts. Commenting on these quick and important changes, Verizon Media chief executive Guru Gowrappen had this to share:

“Working with the NBA to redefine the fan’s experience of the game has amazing implications for the future of sports and entertainment.”

Verizon Media chief executive Guru Gowrappen

NBA continues to pursue its expansion drive across brave new markets, including the Baltics and Slovakia. The NBA teamed up with Olympic Entertainment Group (OEG) for those new markets and it’s well-timed as it indicates NBA’s desire to expand globally and seek new audiences as well as better channels of communications with said audiences.

The NBA pins great hopes on European viewership just as it does to viewers back home. The season restart debuted with an average of 3.4 million viewers, not too bad all things considered. While the restart efforts took some time, the NBA is finally back in full swing.