NYC Rebel
...on the otherside of the pond
The NFL product is just as trash imo and they functioning well. It’s going to take YEARS to see a return on this though. Folks today are simply too conditioned
The NBA’s new media strategy: Build on what the NFL does right - Article
- Thread starter NYC Rebel
- Start date
Nero Christ
Sniper out now on all digital platforms brev
Yea...It's clear Silver wants to bury Inside but couldn't fully do it just by ending the partnership with TNT, so this current setup was the next best thing. Put them on ESPN where they'll be watered down and sparsely used.
ding ding ding
i had a convo with friends a few years back where i was trying to get at this with examples but this is well said
NYC Rebel
...on the otherside of the pond
All that is a temporary wave and has never proven to have the stickiness to keep fans interested. Look at the end result. Player led focus doesn’t have long lasting standing with fans. Players retire….fan interest retires WITH THEM. It’s dumb as fukk for a league to continue reinventing itself around its players when developing interests around TEAM is a fixture that always works to retain the return customer.
And the NBA fueled success helped one player, not the NBA itself. We see this now with Inside the NBA helping themselves but not bringing interest to the league
it helped one player THE MOST but it definitely helped more than one player.
I was just trippin off of how ridiculous Shaq's you cant stop the reign video was the other day. All the noise around him kept him around till this day.
let along penny... from sneakers that still endure to him having a damn famous puppet
And while mentioning penny, at his height was he even a top ten player?! Im not askin this to undermine penny. Im asking because aside from lebron and steph none of the nba players today even have the social gravity that Penny had back then .
Today's nba champs and all time greats (jokic) and "stars" cant compare to a top 20 players from the past's resonance ...from an expansion team no less.
There's more figures... Rodman for instance. These people were pop stars
I don't understand how helping the leagues premier products (the players) didnt help the NBA. Thats why the NBA is still around. However the matter, the approach worked... and it aint now
There was a time @CHICAGO bushed my threads alluding to this.
Been yelling this for YEARS
They have to move away from that shytty Inside the NBA/ he said-she said model.
If shyt is fukked up....sell the lie just like the NFL does.
LOS ANGELES — When Hall of Famer Grant Hill thought back on NBC’s coverage of the NBA in the 1990s, his mind went first to battling Michael Jordan. In those days, sportscaster Bob Costas’s monologues built the tension and John Tesh’s “Roundball Rock” provided the soundtrack as the tongue-wagging Chicago Bulls legend headlined marquee matchups on network television.
“You knew everyone was going to be watching,” Hill said. “You got a good night’s sleep and a good meal the night before. You wanted to be at your best. Thankfully, I had some good moments in those NBC games ‘way back last century,’ as my children say. But at some point you had to guard Jordan. That brings back some bad memories.”
NBC and Hill will come full circle when the NBA season opens Tuesday: The network will broadcast NBA games for the first time since 2002, and Hill will serve as an analyst alongside fellow former stars Reggie Miller, Carmelo Anthony and Vince Carter. NBC has even named Jordan as a “special contributor.”
But when the NBA reached 11-year media rights agreements in 2024 with Disney, NBC Universal and Amazon worth a combined $76 billion, it was more concerned with positioning itself for the future than rekindling Jordan-era nostalgia. The NBA cut ties with TNT after 36 years, angling its broadcast model away from cable television and toward network television and streaming platforms.
By partnering with ESPN, NBC and Amazon’s Prime Video, which all also broadcast NFL games, the NBA has more closely aligned its broadcast portfolio with professional football’s strategy. What’s more, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has expressed a desire for NBA programming to “educate and celebrate” rather than spark angry debates or denigrate the modern game. The NBA’s new media partners, in turn, have opened their NFL playbooks to carry out that mission, tapping a wave of enthusiastic former players to sing the sport’s praises.
“I grew up in the 1990s and was a big Chicago Bulls fan,” said Dallas Mavericks icon Dirk Nowitzki, who joins a deep Prime Video roster that includes Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade, Candace Parker, Blake Griffin, John Wall and Udonis Haslem. “Jordan winning some of these championships were the best moments for me: Game 6 in Utah [in the 1998 Finals] with the slight push-off, that’s a memory I’ll never forget. Hopefully, we can put the game in a more positive light. I think there’s been a lot of negative spin on the game. We want to show that the league is fun and hard. Blake is hilarious, Steve is very dry, and hopefully we can have some fun and analyze the game.”
The NBA will air games nationally on ABC, ESPN, NBC, Peacock, Prime Video, NBA TV and the League Pass subscription service, which enables out-of-market fans to watch local broadcasts. By expanding its streaming options and airing national broadcasts seven days a week, the NBA hopes to better serve cord-cutters and younger viewers by offering a more personalized experience with various audio commentary options, multi-view capabilities and alternate feeds featuring statistical overlays or gambling-related content. Prime Video, which is available to Amazon’s 200-plus million Prime members, will also extend the NBA’s global reach by broadcasting in 12 languages and 200 countries. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
“In May of this year, the lines crossed for the first time where more television consumption is coming through streaming services than broadcast and cable,” Silver said in July. “It’s not an accident that in our new television deals every single game will be streamed.”
The NBA’s media reset follows several years of declining television viewership: Game 1 of this year’s Finals on ABC drew 10.3 million viewers, down from 15.1 million viewers for the comparable game in 2019, the last year before the coronavirus pandemic, and 20.4 million viewers in 2017, which was the highest mark of the post-Jordan era. By comparison, NFL games averaged 18.6 million viewers through the first five weeks of the regular season, and last year’s four divisional-round playoff games averaged 36.6 million.
In hopes of growing its audience, the NBA will air about 100 games on ABC and NBC during the regular season and playoffs, a sharp increase from last season. NBC will also produce “Sunday Night Basketball” games and the “Basketball Night in America” pregame show, spin-offs of its successful NFL broadcasts.
“The limitations of cable right now have dramatically reduced fan interaction with our sport,” said Gregg Winik, the NBA’s president of content. “[Network television] is a wider audience. We’ve been doing ABC Saturday nights for years. Once NBC’s ‘Sunday Night Football’ concludes, ‘Sunday Night Basketball’ will start. ‘Sunday Night Football’ is the No. 1 show in television every year, so that’s a great slot.”
ESPN, NBC and Prime Video all have initiatives aimed at creating a more immersive and fulfilling viewing experience. ABC and ESPN, which will continue to host the NBA’s Christmas slate and the Finals, will import “Inside the NBA,” the longtime TNT show starring Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal. In keeping with Silver’s desire for more nuanced coverage, ESPN has rolled out “Coaches Corner” film breakdowns featuring analyst Tim Legler and NBA coaches. Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James praised the series on social media Wednesday, noting that “hot take culture [is] so tired.”
Meanwhile, NBC’s package, which includes All-Star Weekend, will feature network television games on Tuesdays, including an opening night doubleheader, and Peacock streaming games on Mondays. The network plans to include starting lineup introductions as part of its broadcasts, deploy reporters to each team’s bench during its Peacock games to offer an up-close experience and launch “Enjoy Basketball,” a weekday show featuring YouTube creators and podcasts whose title neatly encapsulates Silver’s philosophical vision.
“To us, the game is the star,” NBC executive producer Sam Flood said. “We want to lean into the arena experience so, by the end of the telecast, everyone at home says they need to get to a game. We’ll call out a team that’s making bad decisions on the court and explain why another approach would help them that night. We’re not going to be Pollyanna, but at the same time we’re not going to play the hot take game.”
During a swanky tip-off party in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Amazon executives unveiled Prime Video’s futuristic, two-story studio that features 2,300 LED monitors, an expansive lounge and a full bar decorated with basketball art and famous sneakers. The 13,000-square-foot Culver City studio’s showpiece was a regulation-sized NBA half-court with an LED floor. The digital floor will be toggled during broadcasts, mirroring Madison Square Garden’s hardwood during a New York Knicks segment and switching to a color-coded shot chart for a breakdown of Anthony Edwards’s hot spots.
the talkin head hatin model (sadly taking from sports talk radio and Faux News because it was red meat for ratings) is really irritating with hoops.
100%.
Gotta start somewhere. It won't be an overnight fix, but it can be done.
OGs of the game and the Young brehs should be aligned and respectful of their eras. They can still have a good time with comparing their eras without denigrating each other's.
Agreed but I think the built in advantage that the NFL has that no other sport has is scarcity of games. There are only 17 the NFL owns a whole day! Every NFL Sunday is an event
In todays quick paced 30 second clip environment people don’t have the attention span to follow long seasons like the other sports as much as the NFL
Football is also made for gambling which is huge
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Half the NBA media coverage
“Is Ant Man the new face of the NBA”
“Who will be the new face of the NBA”
I don’t even think they care about teams or the game.
“Is Ant Man the new face of the NBA”
“Who will be the new face of the NBA”
I don’t even think they care about teams or the game.
Bryan Danielson
Jmare007 x Bryan Danielson x JLova = King Ghidorah
NBA media strategy should be stop shytting on current top player to prop up past greats
Don’t shyt on legends
Rebuke and shyt on the fan base that does it
Don’t shyt on legends
Rebuke and shyt on the fan base that does it
NYC Rebel
...on the otherside of the pond
It helped the players, not the league. And for you guys to now say that the league should continue that route in the era of social media where players and their imperfections are so much easier to take them down is a garbage model.
Especially when so-called journalist are making their living off the demise particularly of NBA players. You need to then celebrate the game around the game itself. Those players can have those things regardless… But the growth of the game is what’s important here I can go to Jamaica and see an entire family from grandparents to great grandchild wearing all Steelers gear. Watching generations, handing down their fandom. that is impossible for the NBA to produce at this juncture minus Laker, Celtic, Knicks, and Philadelphia fans. The return customer is the most important customer in all business. When focus solely on players happens and not the game itself, customers don’t return when they retire.
This should’ve happened a long time ago. That barbershop style commentary format has outlived its lifespan. This will help with the presentation of the league. I think the discussion about player appeal and stars is important though. This new crop of players aren’t as captivating as the crop we had from the 90s all the way until the Warriors dynasty. The fact that the best players in the league are mostly international and not home grown hurts the growth of marketing the game to the casuals. Only Luka & Wemby seem to have that extra gear to be great and to play with a style and swagger that attracts casual viewers. The NBA needs more players like Luka & Wemby, and less Jokic & SGA (from a marketing perspective).
ding ding ding
this whole "make fandom team-centric through media" sounds good but media isn't some God-hand
threattonature
Veteran
Comparing NFL and NBA popularity is comparing apples to oranges. NFL has huge built in advantages. Having the one primary game a week makes it easy to plan social events around it or just to make it a routine to watch. Add in fantasy football and gambling and hell even something as simple as office pools that brings lots of eyes to the sport.
With the NFL it's much much easier to follow what's happening over the course of a season. With the NBA it's really a chore to follow all season long and keep up with all the happenings. Viewing habits have changed, so people are far less willing to devote so much time to watching on a night to night basis due to how much competition there is once streaming hit.
With that said, the other factors that are in the NBA's control is that parity hurts the league. It's the most star driven league. That's always been true despite everybody trying to paint the old days with rose colored glasses saying that in the old days the teams were the draw. Michigan State vs Indiana State was the highest rated college game ever and it damn sure wasn't because of loyal fan bases for those teams. It was to see Bird vs Magic.
By changing the rules to promote more ball movement and deemphasize iso ball it took away what a lot of fans loved about the NBA to push it more globally and it's worked. Everyone talking about the NBA's marketing problems for some reason always ignore that international popularity of the game. American fans want the crazy dunks, the crossovers, and more of the flash. American players were more athletic. We are seeing the end game of making the game more international. Now players have to be more well rounded to get their points. Defense has become so advanced it's rare to see just an iso drive to the basket for a dunk or someone with a nice handle just being able to cross somebody for an easy layup.
Now I do agree that the balance of positive coverage does need to be tilted heavily towards promoting more positivity of the product. That I agree on, but I do still think there is room for an Inside the NBA type show. The bigger problem is all the hot take shows. The NBA should leverage it's relationships to get rid of trying to trash or compare current players and make it a point of emphasis to promote the greatness of what we are seeing and reeducate the fans.
i wasn't endorsing the model. I think this symbiosis was more driven by happenstance than proactive vision. at least initially... they knowingly leaned into it at one point
there is a challenge to selling a black league (asthetic and identity wise) to a white consumer base. Black people , en masse, have always been sold to the white public through a dehumanized deficit model.
My greatest example is the Mayweather family. They could just as much be sold as a generational example of a familial legacy of study, discipline, and mastery in the science of martial arts . comparable to how bill Bellicheck and the Mannings justifiably are .
But you cant sell black people to the white consumer public in that manner. So we get what we got. The white players are cerebral and and we are "beast mode" and the like.
(As much as the nba is a game of strategy matchups and adjustments, the general public interprets it as mindless physicality as cause of who its associated with. this isnt the case with the nfl... )
This is the conundrum the Nba is facing. Its why the coversge is so atrocious. Again, this isn't an endorsement. and it clearly isnt working lol
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