1. How NBA Scores in Social Media
Bryan Perez
Sr. Vice President/General Manager
NBA Digital
2. What do Sports Mean to Fans
Sports are fundamentally emotional and inherently social
73.0
17.0 20.9 21.3
2010 ATTENDANCE
(MILLIONS)
Over 130 million fans attended major U.S. sporting events last year
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3. Evolution of Sports Consumption
From the beginning, sports has been about sharing
and technology has played a huge role
Originally, it was one
to many under the
broadcast model
Conversations took
place where people
physically aggregated
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4. Evolution of Sports Consumption
Advent of sports talk radio opened up the conversation
SPORTS RADIO AUDIENCE SHARE
(PERCENTAGE) 3.2
2.2 2.3 2.5
1.7 2.0 2.1
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
1,031 sports radio stations U.S., Conversations no longer bound
25 million listeners per week by physical presence but still
inherently local
SOURCE: ARBITRON - RADIO TODAY: HOW AMERICA LISTENS TO RADIO - 2010, PERSONS 12+, MON-SUN, 6AM-MID 4
5. Evolution of Sports Consumption
The Internet broadened the conversation
NBA.COM TRAFFIC BY CONTINENT, 2010-11 SEASON No longer local,
CONTINENT
AVERAGE
MONTHLY UNIQUES
PERCENT
OF TOTAL
but global
North America 21,338,148 62.4%
N.A. (exc U.S.) 2,555,766 7.5%
Asia 6,656,872 19.5%
Europe 5,314,022 15.5%
South America 715,944 2.1%
NOTES: ONLY INCLUDES TOTALS FROM TOP 75 COUNTRIES; AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND ARE INCLUDED WITH ASIA; ONLY AFRICAN COUNTRY IN TOP 75 WAS S AFRICA AT #73 (0.0%)
SOURCE: OMNITURE, DATA FROM NOV 10-MAY 11 5
6. Timeline – a Natural Evolution
1950s – 70s 1970s – 90s 1990s – 00s 2000s – Today
Technology Broadcast Sports Radio Internet Social
Geography Physical Local Global Global
Presence Presence
NBA Recognized:
2. Need to share the moment hadn’t changed
3. Internet helped take down geographic barriers
4. Social platforms allowed those conversations to be aggregated
in real time basis
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7. NBA Goals for Social Media
1. Build Audience
– Not that different from a start-up
DATE OF FIRST PRESENCE
NBA MLB NFL NHL
Spring Early Spring Summer
2007 2008 2009 2009
• Building Authenticity
– Daily email to senior executives
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8. Building Authenticity – Selected Tweets
6/1/11
“I am retiring.”
6/1/11
“I wanna have white guy
chest hairs. Can I get that?”
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9. NBA Goals for Social Media
1. Build Audience
– Not that different from a start-up
2. Building Authenticity
– Fewer restrictions than other leagues
– Daily email to senior executives
• Monetization
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10. Social Audience Growth
9000000
Facebook Fan Growth Twitter Follower Growth
2700000
8500000 2600000
F
o 2500000
8000000 l
2400000
l
F o 2300000
a w
7500000
n 2200000
e
s
r 2100000
7000000 s
2000000
1900000
6500000
6000000
12/20/2010 1/20/2011 2/20/2011 3/20/2011 4/20/2011 5/20/2011 Month
Month
9.3 million Fans 2.7 million Followers
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11. Social Audience Growth
Facebook referrals are now averaging over 3.5 million per month
• Facebook referrals are up over
FACEBOOK 100x since November ’08, and
NBA.COM REFERRALS up 7x for the 2010-11 season
(THOUSANDS)
vs. the 2009-10 season.
• For the 2010-11 season,
Facebook accounted for 30%
of non-search referrals to
NBA.com
SOURCE: OMNITURE
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12. Monetization - Advertising
• Seeing great success with integrated status updates
– Remember authenticity
• Broader integrations are successful, but resource heavy
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16. Monetization – Social Gaming
• Challenges with Fantasy
• Broader casual audiences
• Evergreen game play
• Harness existing audience and virality for growth
• Dual revenue stream: sponsorship and social commerce
16
20. Emerging Categories – Check-ins
• Value proposition still needs to be refined
Badging not enough
Content as reward?
• Audience aggregation between in-arena and broadcast
still has great upside
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21. Summary
• Focus on building audience via content and authenticity
• Look for alternate monetization opportunities once you have
critical mass
– Basic content referral back to your site
– Beware scalability of broad integrations
– Social Gaming
• LBS/Virtual Check-ins
– Audience aggregation is key for NBA
– Still in early days
– What is in it for customer?
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