NexxNow Inc. may be located in East Aurora, NY, but it may soon become a widely known company here in Buffalo. Though it isn’t planning to move, it may very well be starting its newly acquired basketball franchise in the city.
NexxNow is a media company whose main goal, according to their website, is to bring US minor league basketball to a Chinese audience which boasts a 300+ million fan base. It didn’t get this idea out of thin air. On February 2, around 200 million Chinese viewers tuned into an NBA broadcast of a Houston Rockets vs. Milwaukee Bucks game – that’s twice the number of people who watched the Super Bowl this past Sunday.
NexxNow partnered with the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), a professional men’s basketball league, in the interest of delivering over 30 years worth of media content to a Chinese audience. NexxNow doesn’t just end its influence with the CBA.
It should come as no surprise then that NexxNow is beginning a new franchise with the newly formed Premiere Basketball League (PBL). The PBL just began playing in January of this year and already boasts ten teams, including one in nearby Rochester. Though it does not have a name yet, this addition to the league will bring another sports team to the Buffalo arena. The team’s venue is still being negotiated but they are scheduled to begin playing in January 2009.