A player rises for a dunk, the buzzer sounds, and within seconds the moment is on your TV, your phone and your social feeds. It feels instant, almost effortless. It isn’t. Behind every sports highlight is a hidden network of cameras, cables, data centres and deals, and this week, basketball showed just how much that network is worth.

What happened

The NBA, WNBA and AT&T announced the launch of the fourth generation of the High-Speed Arena Network (HSAN), the leagues’ connectivity platform built to quickly and reliably transport live game content, highlights, replays, in-arena programming and stats to fans and business partners. tradingview

The scale is enormous. The network is supported by more than 68,000 miles of AT&T fiber and network infrastructure, and is designed to transport more than 118 concurrent, high-quality, low-latency streams per game, supporting millions of hours of basketball consumption during the 2027-28 NBA season. 

It came with a business deal too: AT&T and the NBA announced a multiyear extension of their marketing partnership alongside the new network. 

The journey of a highlight, in five steps

Think of a single dunk. Here’s roughly what has to happen for millions of people to see it seconds later.

1. Capture. Dozens of cameras around the court record the moment from every angle, while systems track the ball, the players and the score.

2. The backbone. All of that footage and data has to leave the arena instantly. That’s the job of a network like HSAN, which the leagues describe as a dedicated connectivity backbone that links NBA arenas, production facilities, data centers and media partners. att