The NBA and the Internet
The NBA does a fantastic job marketing itself on the Internet. This statement seems obvious coming from a basketball website, right? Sure, but the breadth of this Internet dominance had not really hit me until I saw a startling stat the other day.
Embarrassingly enough, the statistic came via Facebook, when I stumbled upon the NBA Fan Page application. It turns out that over 125,000 people are fans of the NBA on Facebook. This seems low, but consider that not everyone has Facebook, some don’t use it a great deal, and some don’t bother with applications. Obviously, too, the Fan Pages may not have reached everyone yet. Admittedly though, the number seems low.
However, a quick search returned Fan Pages for the NFL and MLB. The NFL Fan Page has just 1200 members, while the MLB is struggling with 700. I think these results make the picture seem more extreme than it actually is, but it piqued my interest enough to delve into the topic a little further.
Next, I hit Ball Hype. Most sports sites and blog sites recognize Ball Hype as somewhat of an authority, or at least a hub, for sports on the Internet. I checked their rankings, and the results supported what I had hypothesized – the NBA has a very strong Internet presence, though not to the degree apparent on Facebook. Instead, I found that of the Top 50 sites, seven are basketball, and of the Top 100, 22 are basketball. For interest’s sake, my site is just on the outside looking in for that list, and Hoops Addict is most definitely on there.
The percentage may seem average or low, but only baseball has a larger presence with 14 of the Top 50 and 28 of the Top 100. Of the Top 100, a shocking 40 of them self-identify as being “all sports”, meaning that the NBA holds 22 of the 60 sport-specific spots in the Top 100, a terrific rate. Additionally, a good number of the “all sports” sites feature strong amounts of basketball content, though this evidence is anecdotal at best. Furthermore, basketball faces the disadvantage of being a lackluster fantasy sport, an area (and billion dollar industry) where baseball and football derive a great deal of their online content from.
For further reassurance of the NBA’s presence on the Internet, I did some Googling and scoured blog hubs to find some more interesting information. Hoops Hype lists 217 basketball sites on their hub. 217. Two hundred and seventeen. Let that sink in, and then consider that there are just 30 NBA teams, and not every site could possibly be listed on there.
I realize, at this point, that you could say the NBA has nothing to do with this, that it is all luck and circumstance on their behalf, and that we, the Internet community, are responsible. And that would be fair, until you looked at what the NBA does proactively on the Internet. Very few of the bigger baseball blogs are team-specific, and baseball Internet traffic appears to be driven by statistics, fantasy, and, to a degree, announcing. NFL traffic is hurt by the once-a-week nature, I’m sure, and hockey traffic is…well, let’s just move on.
The clearest advantage the NBA has over other organizations is on YouTube. Just ask Odenized, the God of NBA YouTube. A search of ‘NBA’ on YouTube returned 234,000 videos, compared to 14,300 for ‘MLB’ and 59,100 for ‘NFL.’ The NBA’s YouTube page alone dominated what a general search can find for the other major sports leagues, showing that the NBA as a video provider has over 48,000 subscribers, nearly 1,000 videos, and a total of just shy of three million (3,000,000!) video views.
NBA players have gotten involved, as well. Most of us know about Gilbert Arenas’ popular blog, but other players like Chris Bosh, Luol Deng, Chris Kaman, Jerry Stackhouse, and more have blogs on NBA.com or elsewhere on the Internet. The NBA has also aggressively encouraged players to do one-off blogs, as evidenced by the frequent posting of rookie blogs in years past. Even D-Leaguers like Rod Benson and Morris Almond blog. Over at MLB.com, player blogs are infrequent and of less depth, with Curt Schilling being the obvious exception. NFL.com has minimal blog content.
A final area to look at is the availability of actual online content, since that’s what most of us are looking for. The NBA offers a Daily Top 10, a plethora of videos, and NBA League Pass. The NFL posts highlights, but doesn’t have streaming coverage available, yet. MLB possibly surpasses the NBA in this one area, as MLB TV has grown in popularity and is relatively inexpensive. The same goes for League Pass, but the key difference is that the NBA requires you to have its cable package in order to get League Pass, whereas the MLB treats Extra Innings and MLB TV as separate. There are flaws with both, since I can’t technically get the online content of either as a student eight months of the year (the NBA because I don’t have cable, and MLB because I’m only here one month of the season). This is the area where every league could improve, and it would be nice to see the NBA and MLB move to making their cable and online game offerings the same and, possibly, a package for the person like me who requires content on TV and online but cannot afford both.
On most grounds, the NBA makes fantastic use of the Internet. Their video content, Facebook authority, and overall blog presence is overwhelming. But why is this important? It’s simple, really – the Internet is becoming the largest marketing tool in the world, and it is wildly inexpensive to use, especially if people are coming to you for the content and not the other way around.
The Internet is emerging as a serious business tool, and it’s one that the NBA currently holds a competitive advantage in, so it could certainly be a strong suit moving forwards.
Blake Murphy also runs and writes for The On Deck Circle.
This article was written by:
Blake Murphy - who has written 21 posts on Hoops Addict.
Blake Murphy is a Queen's University Business graduate and broadcast journalism hopeful. He uses his business background often to analyze basketball from a management perspective more so than a fan perspective.
Comments
By Carolyn on April 17th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Blake - this is a great article. How do you do it? You’re a student?? I want to know more. Undergrad, grad? Was this a research paper? If so, can I go to your school?
By Gagan on April 17th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Great, insightful article!
Say what you will about the league, but the league is back big time and it’s only going to get better. It helps that the NBA’s following is getting younger and thus can relate to the players better in my opinion. There are so many ways to follow the sport now that it amazes me, you can even get scores on your cell phone. Amazing.
By Jake on April 17th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Great analysis - not to mention that of the Big 4 sports, the NBA, by far, has the largest international following. It’s not far when a foreigner owns an NBA franchise - the way the dollar is slumping, it’s only a matter of time!
By Blake Murphy on April 17th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Carolyn, thank you. Yes, I’m a student. Awesomely enough, my second last undergrad exam (ever!) is tomorrow morning. Un-awesomely, that means this entire article was a procrastination tool, and sadly, it has no scholastic purpose. It was simply me putting off going to the library yesterday morning.
By Ryan on April 17th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
SAVE OUR SONICS!
By Kaan on April 17th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I think the main reason for this is basketball is a global game and football and baseball are not. For example nba.com has MORE than half of its hits outside of North America. People all around the world log into the net for their favorite teams and national players. I for one is among them.
NBA has a much much bigger audiance. Only if it was earlier for us Europeans… 5.30 am starts to a Lakers-Suns game seriously harms our health
By Dave on April 17th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Yes Kaan, you are so right. down here in NZ I can get a MAXIMUM of 2 games per week on Pay TV - nothing at all on Public networks. So I turn to the internet, NBA.com, ESPN and youtube for whatever snippets of games I can get.
By steve on April 17th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
It’s easy. College educated people follow the NBA.
NFL and MLB are just loved by rednecks.
By Jey on April 18th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Well done. I think you should hold onto this one and maybe even expand it one day. Could be a decently important piece in the near future.
By Reacharound on April 20th, 2008 at 11:59 am
But if you follow the NFL, for example, why would you look on the internet for coverage, because the radio and tv stations devote billions of hours of coverage. and the NFL network is pretty good for this too.
if you bet on the NBA or play in fantasy leagues you have to check the internet a ton because of the extreme amount of day-to-day injuries faced by star players that could have a big impact.!
By Igor on April 30th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
My favorite website is hoops addict and my second favorite is pro basketball news (http://www.probasketballnews.com). i live outside of united states and check both every day. they are the only two sites i am certain to check every day.
By LA Lakers Blog on April 30th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Great article.Thank you for the good read. I’ve been finding a lot of information covering a similar topic as this.
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