The ACB expands on Latin American screens with Disney – Basketball – ABC Color

ESPN, which is also the partner of Spanish soccer in the United States, will take control of all the matches of the three main Spanish basketball competitions in 21 Latin American countries, which will be broadcast entirely on its Star+ digital platform, and will offer one or more weekly matches on its linear television channels in the Latin American market.

The agreement will bring the ACB to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Belize and three other autonomous territories. With this incorporation, Spanish basketball now reaches 141 countries, from all continents except Oceania.

This is a substantial increase in diffusion for the ACB in Latin America, where it came to have an agreement with Sky several seasons ago, and until now it had individual agreements in only three countries: in Mexico with TVC Deportes, in Argentina with DeporTV and in Venezuela with Inter. All three remain, and the last two will coincide with ESPN, since they are not exclusive.

Now, Spanish basketball is expanding its footprint on Latin American screens and also its billing. With ESPN, the ACB triples its income from Latin America, according to what EFE learned, and the amount also improves what it received for the global agreement that it previously had for the entire region.

“The ACB maintains a strong relationship with Latin American basketball, which occupies a priority place within our internationalization objectives. This agreement with ESPN provides us with optimal diffusion throughout the region”, values ​​the general director of the ACB, José Miguel Calleja .

In the Disney chain, which Calleja highlights as “the leading sports platform” in the region, Spanish basketball will have “the possibility of developing a project in the medium and long term,” according to the ACB executive.

Added to the broadcast of the matches is content such as the weekly program ‘El Quinto Cuarto’, which the association of Spanish basketball clubs produces in Spanish and English for all its international television partners, and an audiovisual content service that includes reports and repetitions of the best moments of each day.

LATIN AMERICA, A STRATEGIC TERRITORY

Latin America has long been a strategic territory for the ACB, which has around twenty players from the region currently contesting the championship. Among them, the most represented nation is Brazil, with five players: Marcelinho Huertas (Lenovo Tenerife), Vitor Benite (San Pablo Burgos), Rafa Luz (Surne Bilbao), Augusto Lima (UCAM Murcia) and Leo Meindl (Urbas Fuenlabrada).

Argentina also has a good representation, with Nico Laprovittola (Barça), Nico Brussino (Gran Canaria), Mateo Díaz (Río Breogán), Fernando Zurbrigen (Monbús Obradoiro) and the Urbas Fuenlabrada youth squad, Juan Fernández.

Since 2018, the ACB recognizes the best Latin American player in the competition in a prize that it awards together with the EFE Agency. the first edition distinguished Laprovittola for his performance at Joventut in the 2018-19 season, while the last two have gone to Huertas for his great seasons as Tenerife helmsman.