GENEVA/LONDON (FIBA/VIASAT) – Viasat Broadcasting and FIBA, the International Basketball Federation, today announced a renewal of their partnership for the exclusive broadcasting rights to the 2013-2015 FIBA and FIBA Europe men and women’s events in the Nordic countries, the Baltics and Bulgaria.

The rights are for broadcast coverage on free-TV, pay-TV, mobile devices and the Internet. The deal includes the EuroBasket Championships in 2013 and 2015, in addition to the FIBA World Championship in 2014.

As one of the most popular televised sports in the world, the viewing figures of basketball have been growing rapidly in recent years. Last year, the two FIBA World Championships attracted a combined audience of more than a billion viewers in around 200 countries worldwide.

Viasat Broadcasting already holds the rights to EuroBasket for men in Lithuania later this month, as well as the most prestigious European basketball club tournament, the Euroleague.

In 2013, the EuroBasket Championship for men will be held in Slovenia, while the women’s tournament will take place in France. The following year, Spain and Turkey will be hosting the 2014 FIBA World Championships for men and women respectively. The host country for EuroBasket in 2015 is yet to be announced.

In the Nordic countries, the FIBA and FIBA Europe events will be shown on the pay-TV channel Viasat Sport in Norway and Sweden. In the latter country it will also be shown on the free-TV channel TV10. In Denmark they will be shown on the pay-TV channels TV 2 Sport HD and TV 2 Sport. TV2 Sport is a joint venture between MTG and the Danish national broadcaster TV 2. Finnish viewers will be able to watch the basketball on Nelonen Pro, a pay-TV channel dedicated to sport, owned by the Sanoma Group in strategic cooperation with Viasat. A number of European and World Championship matches will also be streamed live on the Viaplay multi-screen online video streaming service in Norway and Sweden, and on tv2sport.dk in Denmark.

Viewers in the Baltics will be able to watch the FIBA events either on their local TV3 and TV6 free-TV channels or on Viasat Sport Baltic, a pay-TV channel. In Bulgaria, they will be shown on either the free-TV channel Diema or the pay-TV channel Nova Sport.

Karolis Dapkevicius, Head of Sport Pay-TV Baltic commented “The EuroBasket Championships and FIBA World Championships are major sporting events that attract very large TV audiences. The TV production is of a high quality and we are delighted to be able to include these popular competitions in our portfolio for another three years” 

FIBA Secretary General and IOC Member Patrick Baumann said: “This new agreement with Viasat, who have been partners since 2007, is great news for FIBA. It reflects the ever increasing interest in our competitions. The guaranteed broadcasting of our events in these territories will bring the quality and excitement of international basketball yet to more fans, catering to the demands of some key markets.”

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About FIBA

FIBA (www.fiba.basketball) – the world governing body for basketball – is an independent association formed by 213 National Basketball Federations throughout the world. It is recognised as the sole competent authority in basketball by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

For further information about FIBA and FIBA Championships visit facebook.com/fiba and twitter.com/fiba or youtube.com/fiba.

Viasat and Modern Times Group

Viasat Broadcasting is part of Modern Times Group, the international entertainment broadcasting group with the largest geographical broadcast footprint in Europe. MTG's Viasat Broadcasting operates 28 free-TV channels in 11 countries and 38 pay-TV channels in 32 countries. The pay-TV channels are distributed on Viasat’s own satellite platforms in nine countries, as well as on third party broadcast networks and over the open internet. These free-TV and pay-TV channels and pay-TV platforms attract a total of 125 million viewers in 33 countries.

Modern Times Group is a growth company and generated SEK 13.1 billion of sales and SEK 2.4 billion of operating income in 2010. MTG’s Class A and B shares are listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm’s Large Cap index under the symbols ‘MTGA’ and ‘MTGB’. See: www.mtg.se