New Media and National Basketball Association (NBA)
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New Media and National Basketball Association (NBA)
by: David Lu
In 2007, the NBA extended its national TV package with ESPN/ABC and TNT. This package included plenty of new media rights. This is a sign that digital media is growing in the sports world. The deal was worth about $930 million a year for the eight-year life of the pact, good for a total of $7.44 billion. That's up significantly from the $765 million-a-year, $4.6 billion deal the NBA signed with ESPN/ABC and TNT six years ago that included TV rights only. This is one of the first cases of TV and digital platforms being put together in such a deal by a big sports league. This could be a model for sports deals in the future. For ESPN this deal means that NBA games and other content will be a part of more than 17 outlets for the company, including ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 and the rights to simulcast full games live on ESPN360.com and ESPN Mobile TV.
The 2007 NBA All-Star game was held in New Orleans. This event was really new media interactive for the fans. The fans had opportunities to vote for the winner of the final round of the slam dunk contest via SMS text message. Rudy Gay, who was one of the four participants in the contest, asked fans to upload ideas of dunks that he could possibly do. NBA stars have also used new media to act as politicians. Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors, uploaded a video on YouTube encouraging people to vote for him to be an NBA All-Star.
New Media Blogs being used in the NBA
Since 2006-2007 the nba has started to promote blogging by having some of its star players post occasional blogs on the popular website to show what life is like in the NBA. A few of them being , Nate Robinson (NYK) and Gilbert Arenas (WAS).
Athletes who use Twitter
Twitter is now one of the quickest growing social networking and micro-blogging web site around. Many famous people now use Twitter to communicate with fans, including profesional athletes. We have gathers a list of athletes with links below. Feel free to follow your favorites.
- Shaq
- Lance Armstrong
- Robby Gordon
- Ryan Newman
Nba & New Media's Involvement
The N.B.A. has become involved with new media as it has posted it's own official channel on Youtube to promote the sport of basketball. As well as using other social media networks such as facebook.
NBA Focused Blogs
In addition to this, there has been an abundance of blogs started that are targeted towards the NBA audience. Some of these are:
Real Gm Hoopsworld Ball Don't Lie (Yahoo Sports)
References
[1]NBA's $7.4 billion TV deals boosted by new media
[2]Barry Janoff. "New Media, New Programs Star for NBA in New Orleans. " Brandweek 18 Feb. 2008: 16. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. . 15 Dec. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>
