Brazilian streamer Alexandre “Gaules” Borba Chiqueta has entered a new partnership with the NBA, he announced today.
The former Counter-Strike player and current content creator is known as the Brazilian voice of global CS:GO tournaments. He’s also cast other esports titles, such as VALORANT. He has little experience when it comes to sports but has broadcasted youth Brazilian soccer matches in the past. Gaules will begin to stream NBA games on his Twitch channel amid the league’s playoffs starting on Wednesday, June 2 with the Atlanta Hawks vs. New York Knicks and later the Dallas Mavericks vs. Los Angeles Clippers.
The NBA has been testing the waters on Twitch since 2019 when it partnered with Amazon’s streaming service to broadcast youth games. The league, however, has never broadcasted official matches before, not even in English, which makes Gaules’ deal even bigger.
“We discovered in a recent research that basketball is my viewers’ second most-watched sport,” Gaules said. “For this reason, we have teamed up with Budweiser and NBA to offer the public more new content. It will be a new experience for me and the Tribe, but we will learn together about this new universe. I believe that this new partnership has everything to be long and lasting.”
The deal between the NBA and Gaules is valid for the next season as well, so the 37-year-old Brazilian will broadcast over 100 official games between 2021 and 2022. The streamer revealed that he’ll invite guests for the broadcasts and learn how to properly cast it, but it’s unlikely that he’ll leave the laid-back atmosphere of his streams behind.
Gaules didn’t reveal whether he bought the NBA’s broadcast rights or if this partnership follows the “watch party” model where a streamer displays all the official advertising in exchange for permission to broadcast the content.
The Brazilian streamer has a huge audience when it comes to CS:GO tournaments and once almost had 400,000 people simultaneously watching MIBR play against Evil Geniuses in the BLAST Premier Spring Americas Finals in June 2020. Fans can tune into his Twitch channel to watch the NBA playoffs later this week.
