MUMBAI: NBA and Sony Six, the former's broadcast partner in India, will soon introduce Hindi language commentary to the games.
Speaking at the CASBAA OTT summit in Mumbai, NBA India executive Yannick Colaco said that, since audio was very important for sports content, they were actively looking at going regional. "We are already having the audio for 600 games in Chinese," he stressed, adding that, in three months, NBA planned to have its games commentary in Hindi as well.
It was earlier reported by www.indiantelevision.com that the Sony sports network grew majestically in 2016. From Sony Six, Six HD, Sony ESPN and Sony ESPN HD to a bouquet of nine sports channels (Ten Network) prove Sony is looking to be serious player.
About the most viewed sporting event on SPN in 2016, Sony Pictures Network India (SPNI) sports and distribution president Rajesh Kaul had said, “2016 was a strong year for the sports cluster of SPN and we enjoyed an excellent response to a plethora of our properties in cricket, football, fight sports and basketball / NBA. Both our marquee sports events IPL 2016 and UEFA Euro 2016 got an unprecedented level of viewership. In addition to this, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and NBA in our breakfast viewing category have also seen a substantial growth in viewership this year. Over 100 million viewers sampled UFC this year and more than 140 million viewers sampled NBA season 2015-16.”
NBA has a wide following among Indian fans last season NBA 2015-16 being watched by more than 140 million viewers and we are expecting a strong season showing for the 2016-17 season.
Popularity of NBA events is gaining ground in India. One of India’s leading video streaming OTT player Hotstar is making its coverage of sports in 3D Virtual Reality(VR) is known. A Silicon Valley based company called VOKE has helped stream the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four, the CBS Morning Show and live streams of concerts, NBA, NFL and college football games, courtesy its live TrueVR technology.
Netflix had earlier picked up for streaming the documentary of Satnam Singh Bhamra, first India-born basketball player to be drafted into the National Basketball Association (NBA). Netflix acquired streaming rights to telecast the documentary, which also features NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive and NBA's senior director of international basketball operations Troy Justice.
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