MELBOURNE, VIC - August 12, 2026 – Australian fan engagement and data platform Komo has announced a new multi-year partnership with the NBL Group, spanning both the National Basketball League (NBL) and Women's National Basketball League (WNBL). Komo was selected following a competitive evaluation process and will be in place for the upcoming Hungry Jack's NBL27 season, with the WNBL following when its 2026-27 season tips off in October.
Key Points
Australian basketball is in what NBL Group CEO David Stevenson has called "a new golden era of basketball fandom". Arenas are selling out, the women's game is rising as fast as it ever has, and more people are watching, attending and following basketball than at any point in the game's history.
Ambition at that scale is built on fans - known, engaged, and growing in number and passion. The task this partnership takes on is turning a booming audience into fans the leagues genuinely know, keep learning about, and can give more reasons to watch, attend and belong.
That work is already well underway at the NBL Group, which has long put its fans at the centre of how the leagues are run. This partnership extends it: connecting participation, fan data and partner outcomes as a single system across both leagues, so that everything a fan does - playing along with a broadcast, keeping an attendance streak alive, redeeming a reward with a league partner - builds one compounding picture of that fan, and one relationship the leagues own.
For fans, taking part is the start, not the point: every interaction teaches the leagues a little more about what each fan cares about, so what comes back - the content they see, the experiences they're offered, the moments made for fans like them - keeps getting more relevant, season on season. For the leagues' commercial partners, it means audiences they can see and prove: who took part, what they responded to, and what came of it.
"You can't buy knowledge of an audience - someone has to choose to tell you. Participation is how they choose: something worth a minute of their time before tip-off, on the way home from the arena, and in the middle of July when there's no basketball anywhere in sight. Small acts, freely given, and repeated. Any one of them tells you more than a sign-up form. A year of them tells you who someone is and what matters to them.
What the NBL Group wanted wasn't another tool. Most of those tools organise what you already know, rather than creating the knowing. They wanted one system underneath all of it - running the participation, holding what it produces, and feeding the platforms they already run. Fans take part, the leagues learn who they are, and what they learn makes the next season better for fans and worth more to partners. It compounds from there."Joel Steel, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Komo
"The NBL is in the middle of the biggest growth we've seen, and that’s down to the fanbase that continues to build right alongside us. Komo gives us one connected way to understand our fans across the NBL and WNBL, and to continue the strong foundations we've already put in place. As our leagues grow, our thinking on how we engage fans has to grow with them, and this partnership is about backing that evolution for the seasons ahead. I want to thank Joel and the team for their work and enthusiasm for our league's successes."
Ben Jenkins, Executive General Manager - Marketing, NBL Group
The partnership rolls out from next month, across the 2026-27 seasons and beyond. In time, the same system is also built to empower the wider game - from the 19 clubs across the NBL and WNBL, each able to run its own programme, to NBL1, the group's national community-level competition - with the opportunity to bring the community game closer to the leagues above it and build one consistent picture of the Australian basketball fan, from local courts to sold-out arenas.
About Komo Technologies
Komo is the audience engagement and data platform that turns the audiences organisations reach - fans, attendees, viewers, shoppers and members - into audiences they own and grow the value of. Through participation, audiences identify themselves; rewards and recognition keep them coming back; and every interaction compounds into deeper connection, richer first-party data and revenue that can be grown and measured. Founded in Perth, Australia, Komo works with leading rights holders, broadcasters, brands and venues in more than 14 countries. Learn more at komo.tech.
About the NBL
The NBL was founded in 1979 and is the world’s best basketball league outside of the NBA. Currently composed of 10 teams (nine in Australia and one in New Zealand), game attendances, TV viewership, digital traffic and fan engagement have skyrocketed following new ownership in 2015. NBL teams are located in Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Tasmania, Melbourne, New Zealand, Perth, Sydney, and Illawarra.
About the WNBL
Founded in 1981, the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL) is Australia’s longest-running elite women’s sporting competition and a proven pathway for world-class talent, producing globally recognised stars. The league has also played a significant role in Australia’s sustained international success, with Olympic and FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup medal-winning teams featuring generations of WNBL talent. Since entering a new era under fresh ownership in 2025, the WNBL has experienced strong growth across crowd attendance, broadcast audiences, fan engagement and digital reach. The league currently features nine teams based in Adelaide, Bendigo, Canberra, Geelong, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Tasmania and Townsville.