• by Erik Sass , October 6, 2014

ESPN Audio has signed a nine-year agreement with the National Basketball Association, set to run from 2016 to 2025, giving the sports network exclusive rights for distribution of NBA audio content, including terrestrial, satellite radio, as well as digital and third-party platforms. The deal covers broadcasts of regular season, all-star, playoffs and finals games.

In addition to renewing and expanding ESPN Radio’s English-language programming rights, the agreement also includes new provisions giving ESPN Deportes Radio exclusive rights to broadcast Spanish-language NBA content. The Spanish-language programming includes live playoffs and finals games.

This is just the latest in a series of Spanish-language content deals for ESPN. Last year ESPN Deportes Radio signed a deal giving it Spanish-language broadcast radio rights for NFL football games in the 2014-2015 season.

Other media companies are boosting their sports programming for Hispanic audiences through new distribution deals as well.

Last month, Comcast and Univision Communications announced a long-term deal for the distribution of the Spanish-language Univision Deportes Network. Also last month, Mun2, the Hispanic cable network owned by NBCUniversal, announced that it will broadcast a number of NFL games in Spanish this football season. Previously, in 2013 Fox Deportes launched a new production arm, Fox Deportes Studios, to create original programming targeting Hispanic sports fans.

While soccer still occupies an important place in sports programming targeting Hispanics, the distribution deals for content from the NBA, NFL and other spectator sports like boxing and NASCAR reflect the growing popularity of these mainstream sports in the U.S. Hispanic population.

In 2012, for example, a poll by ESPN Sports found that 25 million U.S. Hispanics identified themselves as NFL fans.