Nokia, FIBA create mobile services for global basketball

Nokia and the International Basketball Federation, FIBA, announced their cooperation to create mobile services for FIBA, FIBA Europe, and for some of the most important basketball championship events in 2007. The new mobile FIBA service will provide basketball enthusiasts with the opportunity to catch up on the latest scores, news, schedules, and interviews when and where they want.

The FIBA mobile service will be accessible through any mobile device that can access the internet. Offering a comprehensive and user friendly mobile video experience, the FIBA mobile content will also be accessible through Nokia Video Center, currently available on the N95.

“We are delighted to partner up with the world leader not just in mobile device hardware, but also the leader in developing the opportunities that mobile technology offers,” said FIBA Commercial Director Matthew Osmon. “We are particularly amazed by the video quality the new Nokia devices offer. The N93i is an ideal tool for our basketball reporters to, for instance, record video interviews with players and coaches.”

Nokia Nseries multimedia computers will play a special role in the coverage of basketball at www.fiba.com. As part of the agreement, Nokia will provide FIBA reporters around the world with Nokia N93i multimedia computers to record high quality video, photo and audio content that will be made available on the FIBA mobile websites.

Nokia will be present at many of the FIBA events in 2007. Amongst the next championship events are the Olympic Qualifiers EuroBasket in Spain in September 2007, the FIBA Americas championship in Las Vegas in August 2007 and the FIBA U19 World Championship in Novi Sad in July 2007.

FIBA’s main upcoming events are the 2007 FIBA Zone Continental Championships that will qualify for Beijing 2008, the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (to take place in the summer of 2008) and the FIBA World Championships for Men and Women, held every four years. The 2010 FIBA World Championship will be played in Turkey.