As the entire basketball world gets ready for Game 5 tonight and the chance for the Golden State Warriors to win their second-straight NBA Championship, the digital minds of the league have been hard at work all season and playoffs giving fans unique content and behind-the-scenes action.
With the available options for content delivered via social media steadily increasing the last couple years, it has been extremely important for all teams and leagues to embrace the new ways fans consume their content across platforms.
No sports league has done that better than the NBA.
While Facebook Live has been a new platform for consumers at large, Melissa Brenner the NBA’s SVP of Digital Media told us it is something the league has worked on with Facebook since 2014.
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“Like anything it comes down to strong relationships with your partners and brands such as Facebook,” said Brenner. “We have worked with the Facebook Live platform since 2014 and we continue to collaborate with Facebook to stay on top of future offerings so we can continue to deliver the highest quality content to our fans.”
Facebook Live as a platform is something that has taken off in the sports world as a multi-use platform. Alex Morgan streamed her team’s game on the platform and it was integral in showcasing Kobe Bryant’s final game and taking fans to places they would never go, even from the game’s television broadcast. The NBA has taken full advantage of the new platform with numerous videos for fans from players showcasing their off the court initiatives as well as taking fans into player’s pre-game routines before a big game like tonight’s NBA Finals matchup.
A unique way this was shown during this year’s NBA Finals was when current Trailblazer guard (and budding NBA broadcaster/journalist) CJ McCollum interviewed Stephen Curry on the social platform the day before Game 2 of the NBA Finals.
While it was unique in its own right to see another young budding star like McCollum interviewing the two-time MVP in Curry the day before a game, this pairing was even more unique. With Curry’s Warriors eliminating McCollum’s Trailblazers in a hard fought 5-game series just last month, it gave two recent competitors the chance to give fans an inside look at how an NBA player and team prepare for the game’s largest stage.
But how did the NBA get in such a forward thinking mindset with social media and utilizing new-age broadcast partners?
The short answer is the league has had a strong willingness to try new things and the long answer is there has been a major tectonic shift in the infrastructure of the league where we can look no further than the league’s owners. As new owners have entered the league, half of them now come from an entrepreneurial and technology background. As a technology entrepreneur you can’t afford to not take risks in an ever-changing world and that mindset has transferred over to the league. The league owners now have a strong willingness to try out new methods not just on social media, but for business practices and really anything the league wants to get its collective hands on.
It hasn’t always been this way though. Wired had an interesting quote from Mark Cuban talking about this mindset when he bought the Mavericks:
“The league was always open-minded toward tech but hadn’t really implemented much,” Cuban said. “I got all the questions.”
With Cuban only owning the team for 16 years, it shows the kind of technological mindset change there has been not only in the NBA but also the sports world as a whole. The league’s openness to new technology ideas though has been a process that has started from the top on down.
“Adam (Silver) has been a great leader on the technology side and a willingness to try new things,” said Brenner. “This has helped us not only show players in a game setting but also highlighting their social responsibility off of it as well; that is something we always try and showcase too.”
While McCollum is the most famous and widespread example, the league now works with many of its players to get internships and even positions with companies during the offseason to begin planning their post-basketball career. Brenner has stated that the number has steadily gone up and that she expects it will continue to do so as more players begin to not only invest in companies but think about their next career path while they are still an active NBA player.
Going on SportsCenter live around 7:25AM. Post career grind pic.twitter.com/9C3m4lUzpH
— CJ McCollum (@CJMcCollum) June 5, 2016
The league is also not the only one doing the teaching. Brenner also mentioned how NBA players themselves have been helpful in giving the league new ideas for how to engage their fans on social media. She specifically mentioned Shaquille O’Neal as a main reason the league started to get on Twitter as he launched his own person account four months before the league did. This collaboration continues to this day as the league has its staff always looking at creative ways players and teams are utilizing their accounts and how they can capitalize as a league as well through the passing of the information and best practices.
Even as the NBA season on the court winds down, the digital team with the NBA sees no offseason.
“There is no offseason for us even when there are no games being played,” Brenner said. “After the Finals are over we will be close to the NBA Draft and then in Las Vegas for summer league. We have people on the road gathering content for social media and digital year-round whether it is the offseason for the players or during the NBA season.”
While basketball fans might witness another chapter of the league’s history tonight if the Golden State Warriors can add one more win to their record-breaking total, the league’s digital arm will continue to be hard at work looking for the digital best practices and the newest platforms that could lead to interesting new content.