New Media Review: NBA
Overview
The NBA has enjoyed quite a marketing facelift over the last few seasons, hasn’t it? The NBA of the late ‘90s and early 2000’s—aside from Jordan, of course—left us a lockout, the Jailblazers, Latrell Sprewell, and some of the slowest, most boring basketball in recent memory. It didn’t help that some of the few major faces of the immediate post-Jordan era, like Vince Carter and Allen Iverson, were grumpy, me-first “isolation” superstars that turned many fans off from the get-go.
Once the Kobe-Shaq Lakers hit the scene, things sllooowwwwly picked up. A sudden influx of marketable young stars like Dwayne Wade, Dirk, and most recently, LeBron/CP3/Dwight Howard, along with exciting teams that could defend (Pistons/Spurs), score (Phoenix) and win (Boston/LA) injected life into the Association.
Internet Presence
Blogosphere: Even before getting snatched up by ESPN, TrueHoop’s Henry Abbott led one of the most-read sports blogs online. Now bolstered by the ESPN brand, TrueHoop is one of the most respected and well-read NBA daily reads.
NBA Fanhouse is probably the most well-read of the Fanhouse family. Plenty of other major sports blogs, like Free Darko, can claim NBA blogging roots. Only the NFL enjoys a stronger citizen journalist presence than the NBA.
League/team websites: NBA.com provides a good pulse of what’s happening around the NBA on a nightly basis. The NBA TV / video library is well done, but I think a sport as highlight-rich as the NBA could do a better job (on a regular basis) in providing the nightly bests to its fans.
These days, cookie-cutter team sites are the norm in most leagues, and the NBA is no different. Visit 5-10 official team sites and you’ll note the format and mandatory tie-ins. Many of the teams do a decent job differentiating their team sites, but Portland and Charlotte are among some of the best. They both provide unique content in a creative way.
Facebook / Twitter: The NBA leads the way in the social media department, finding new ways to engage with fans all over the globe. About 75% of the NBA teams feature an active, team-run Twitter site, tweeting in-game updates, interesting tidbits about players, and upcoming deals on tickets and merchandise.
According to our growing Twitter directory, there are currently way, way more NBA players (and coaches/executives/team reps) tweeting than in any other sport—combined. You can converse with the likes of Dwight Howard, Baron Davis, and even Mark Cuban, or just follow them to see what they’re up to.
A few teams go above and beyond on Twitter, actively engaging in conversations with the fans that follow them, like the San Antonio Spurs (1,700+ followers as of 3/2009) and the Houston Rockets (600+ followers).
And then there’s the Phoenix Suns.
Check out the impressive Twitter presence from the team of the Valley:
- - Team Twitter feed (1,800+ following)
- - Head Coach Alvin Gentry tweeting (500+ following)
- - “The Big Twitterer,” Shaq (250,000+ following and featured in the New York Times), Steve Nash (7000 following), and Jason Richardson (2,500+ following), all having active conversations with fans
- - Suns Director of Digital Media—dubbed PhoenixSunsGirl—with over 4,000 followers and tons of active conversations with fans and players! (UPDATE: she now tweets exclusively by DigitalRoyalty, which has over 128,000 followers.)
- - Suns VP of Interactive Media, SunsWebMaster, tweeting out unique content from the Suns’ website to 800+ followers
- - Over 36,000 fans on the Suns’ official Facebook fan page
In PR, the sum of your efforts is often measured in “impressions”—tallying up the number of eyes or ears your message reached for a given period. The Suns’ social media presence currently reaches over 300,000 channels, with various conversations about the team and players, keeping everything Suns-related at the top of everyone’s mind. And don’t forget—that number will grow each and every day.
Extremely impressive. No major pro sports team has embraced the social media scene quite like the Phoenix Suns.
Overall
No one is quite sure how to harness the power of new media yet to its full potential. Sports is, traditionally, even slower to adapt than other industries—a new idea or way of thinking won’t seriously resonate until it simply cannot be ignored any longer.
The NBA, so far, stands head and shoulders above the pack in trying to find the solution. The Association, its teams and players have embraced this new method of reaching out to the fans and raising the bar for the experience of the game—without changing the game itself in the least.
Making fans more passionate about your brand, without changing your current product or spending tons of money? That’s a slam-dunk.
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