The NBA has been the most progressive sports league when it comes to online content. The league has been at the forefront of Twitter conversations and real-time highlights. Case in point: it recently became the first organization to surpass two billion loops on Vine.
The league is not done, however. It announced on Tuesday that it will be expanding its online video content. Most notably, they will be creating a Twitter-exclusive weekly pregame show.
Following from the NBA press release:
The NBA, through its NBA Digital partnership with Turner, and Twitter will deliver a free live stream of a new weekly NBA pregame show with first-of-its-kind elements created specifically for integration with Twitter conversation. The weekly pregame show will be featured exclusively on Twitter for logged-in and logged-out users. Ahead of the 2016-17 season, the NBA will announce an additional to-be-determined show that will also stream exclusively on Twitter.
In addition to the weekly show, the league will be expanding its repertoire on other media mediums. This includes rapid replays, videos of player arrivals, animated gifs, and live Periscopes of press conferences.
Commissioner Adam Silver had the following to say about the new partnership:
“We’re excited about bringing live content to Twitter, which has proven to be an ideal destination for real-time sports conversations. We’ve seen technology bring fans closer to our game, teams and players in ways we could have only imagined a decade ago. This expanded partnership will help feed our fans’ growing demand for the NBA by more deeply integrating the league across Twitter’s many platforms.”
Silver is undeniably correct. Twitter allows basketball fans to interact with each other and the league in real time. By using that market with exclusive videos and other content, the league can only look to benefit from a larger audience.
