Twitch has announced that NBA G League games will stream on the social video service that’s better known as a community for esports and gamers.
As a research and development arm of the NBA, the NBA G League will bring live sports to Twitch beginning on Friday and enable its players — young NBA hopefuls among them — to be featured on a platform that has 15 million daily active users and is popular with a younger generation. Up to six of the minor league basketball games will stream weekly on Twitch at twitch.tv/nbagleague live and on demand. The league also streams games on Facebook and has done so previously on YouTube.
The games on Twitch won’t be the traditional broadcasts that basketball fans are accustomed to, and that’s the point, as fan commentary and interactive stats will be enabled.
The partnership will feature co-streaming with more than a dozen top Twitch personalities including Brennon “GoldGlove” O’Neill who has 1.2 million followers as well as experience from livestreaming before a Portland Timbers game and while learning to play FIFA 18. Creators and the average fan will be able to share another channel’s video feed while including their own commentary and play-by-play reactions as viewers in their communities chat about it as well.
“(With the Twitch deal), you can actually be learning while you’re watching, and become the expert that you are in all those various video games,”Jeff Marsilio, NBA vice president, Global Media Distribution, told USA Today. “This is the hypothesis that we’re testing with this partnership. They’re the kind of fanbase that will take the time to learn something that might not be so easy to learn at first. They’re not intimidated by steep learning curves. And that will translate – I hope – to G League.”
Logged-in viewers will be rewarded with loyalty points for interactions with the stream, with the ability to unlock achievements and climb leaderboards to earn prizes.
An overlay enables fans to access stats, with viewers able to click on a team’s name or logo next to the scoreboard to view data on players, team, game, and the season.
“Our deal with Twitch will be groundbreaking,” NBA G League President Malcolm Turner said in a statement. “By leveraging fan commentary, new technology and a passionate community, Twitch elevates video in a unique, engaging way that resonates with young viewers. We look forward to collaborating with their team to create something truly special for basketball fans.”
The deal was announced three months after NBA commissioner Adam Silver at Recode’s Code Conference highlighted Twitch as a platform that was streaming competitions in a way that was completely different from the traditional NBA broadcast that hasn’t changed all that much in decades.
“If you go on Twitch, for example, and you see what it looks like to follow those competitions, it’s sort of constant chatter of fans,” he said. “There’s all kinds of other information appearing on the screen.”
Silver also spoke then of the NBA looking to have fans be able to get play-by-play from friends and celebrities. Those personalized broadcasts will be enabled with the Twitch deal to stream NBA G League games.