NBA D-League Inks Three-Year Deal With AOL's Fanhouse.com

By Eric Fisher, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

The NBA's D-League has signed a three-year agreement with AOL's FanHouse.com in which the sports site will show a weekly live game online, offer video highlights, editorial content and other material on the league. The content will be primarily housed within a newly created, dedicated D-League section at nba.fanhouse.com/nbadleague. The first live game on FanHouse.com will be tonight at 9:00pm ET with a game between the Utah Flash and Idaho Stampede. The pact will seek to complement the D-League's existing digital presence on NBA.com, which includes the free NBA Futurecast package of free live game video, as well as a national TV deal signed in January with Versus. "This provides a lot of additional visibility for us," said D-League President Dan Reed. "We think it reflects really well in the interest in our league, and is an important addition to our media roster." Nearly 20% of current NBA players are D-League alumni. Content within the FanHouse.com D-League section will occasionally migrate to other parts of AOL.com as well. "The importance of the D-League has really started to rise, and our fans were simply asking for this content," said FanHouse.com VP & GM Kevin Lockland.