NBA: The NBA Gets Interactive

By Noah Davis UsFANS.com Managing Editor

The NBA, dealing with apparent fan issues, is now seeking to woo them on the Internet. Having already conquered TV – the NBA has unprecedented worldwide reach via television for a sport – the NBA is now turning to the Internet to help deepen the relationship with fans in ways television can’t.

That the NBA is aggressively targeting the Internet should come as no surprise. ESPN.com recently released a study that they commissioned, which reveals that young men spend as much time surfing the Internet as they do watching television. The study said men aged 18-34 who frequent sports sites average 12.2 hours a week on the Internet, compared with 12.1 hours watching television.

NBA.com’s new section, My NBA Highlights, is a perfect example of the NBA’s new-found interactivity. Instead of spoon-feeding the user the same canned highlights they may see elsewhere, the site prompts the user to create their own individualized highlight reels from some recent NBA action.

A series of screens prompt the NBA fan to choose a game, a favorite player, or even offense or defense to see all the available clips, which are loaded approximately 30 minutes of the featured games’ conclusion. The fan can then decide which order they want to play the clips. Plus the number of clearly indexed clips available is staggering.

Fans then have the ability to vote on the best plays of the night, send video emails with highlight attachments, and save their preferences from one session to the next. The interface is clean and easy to use.

Using the Internet as the medium allows the NBA to keep track of fans worldwide. Currently, the NBA estimates that more than one-third of it’s Internet traffic originates from outside of the United States.

My NBA Highlights is a feature that allows the NBA to deepen the visceral relationship with their fans, and personal that relationship at the fan’s convenience. Additionally, the NBA will be able to get vital information from the fans.

There’s the rub.

The NBA isn’t providing this service completely altruistically. For all it’s fan-friendliness, the NBA realizes – as do all Internet companies – that user data is the key for the Internet reaching its potential as a marketing and advertising vehicle.

Banner ads are passé – click-throughs are down, and users often tune them out. Thus user data is imperative for sites to capture the imaginations of marketing and advertising executives. And bringing in advertising revenue is mission number 1 for all sports leagues.

The NBA, and sports leagues in general, have something to offer to user for that data – expanded, rich content. In a couple of words – highlight clips. The NBA is able to tell media buyers that someone who is willing to pay for a highlights package of a specific team or player has self-identified themselves as a basketball fan in equal stature to someone who purchases some sort of ticket plan, be it for full season or a 10-game plan.

The NBA has entered the arena of interactive rich content full-force. The league entered into a deal with Intel and Excalibur Technologies to form Convera, a technology company that will create interactive content. Convera already supplies the indexed highlight to NBA.com, and is planning interactive game broadcasts. The NBA has a 10 percent ownership of the company.

Whatever the NBA’s intentions, the new feature does raise the bar for all sports leagues. Customizable, on-demand, highlight packages underscores the fact that the NBA sees the need for further interaction with the fan, no matter the medium. The other major sports will have to follow suit, or risk losing touch with their fan base.

Article courtesy of UsFANS.com