Every game in the new NBA 2K League will stream live on Twitch under a new multiyear partnership announced on Wednesday.
The NBA’s new esports league held its draft for the 17 participating teams at Madison Square Garden earlier this month — which also was streamed on Twitch — and the season debuts on May 1. NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced the first overall pick.
The streaming deal will include up to 199 regular season games played on NBA 2K as well as three in-season tournaments and the entire finals, with analysts providing commentary on the action. All of the content will be available at a dedicated channel, twitch.tv/nba2kleague.
Twitch, the global leader in esports streaming, will work with the league on custom graphics and fan engagement.
“This is a groundbreaking partnership for the NBA 2K League,” NBA 2K League managing director Brendan Donohue said in a statement. “Twitch shares our innovative spirit and commitment to putting the gaming community first, and is the ideal home to provide our passionate 2K, NBA and esports fans around the world with the opportunity to catch all the excitement of our inaugural season.”
“From video games to real games, the NBA continues to innovate around basketball when it comes to engaging with the Twitch community,” Justin Dellario, Twitch’s head of esports programs, added. “By partnering with Twitch for the NBA 2K League, that pioneering spirit will continue to be reflected when we elevate this latest entry to the world of competitive gaming with interactive features and our global stage.”
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SportTechie Takeaway
Such a partnership was a foregone conclusion, given Silver’s public endorsement of Twitch’s live streams as well as the NBA’s prior relationship with the streaming platform through a prior broadcast deal to stream up to six G League games each week and the airing of the 2K League draft.
This initiative shows the NBA’s willingness to engage new fans where they already congregate. Breaking into the esports realm is an effort to reach a younger demographic and doing so on a platform like Twitch is the best way to do it, rather than trying to convince that audience to move somewhere new.
One other small, purely speculative consideration to file away in the deep recesses of one’s memory: Amazon owns Twitch and appears hungry for more live sports content so, even though the NBA’s media deals with ABC/ESPN and Turner run through 2024-25, it’s worth noting that Amazon now has made inroads into the NBA streaming business.