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Technology has become a crucial part of the NBA.

Hosting their very own Technology Summit on Friday ahead of the All-Star weekend, Commissioner Adam Silver used the league’s high-profile platform to showcase innovations that were being made off-the-court.

Among Silver’s key areas of focus were the introduction of personalised options set to become part of the live game streaming experience in the near future. This included a new feature which enables fans to scan their own avatar into a live NBA game via the NBA App and replace an NBA player.

NBA @NBA

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver unveils streaming experience of the future via the NBA App - and you can be in it!

In addition to this avatar option, future NBA telecasts will also offer fans more customized experiences, including a wider selection of alternate languages, high-profile influencer and celebrity commentary, the ability to transport the game to virtual locations, new animated graphics, integrated betting, and enhanced camera angles.

These are just the latest in a whole host of innovations that have been undertaken by the league…

In September they released their new, reimagined global NBA App and launched NBA ID, a global membership program offering fans benefits and rewards from the league, teams, and its partners. And even more recently than that, they launched NBA All World, a real-world mobile basketball game from the creators of Pokémon Go.

Luis Vicente, Chairman at Apex Capital, believes that all these innovations are a great achievement for Silver and the NBA, as it is, “Not easy to bring forward sports transformation via innovation.”

The NBA continue to lead the way when it comes to technological innovation as whilst the sports industry has seen a “great improvement on the overall openness to engage,” he suggests that we are still “far away, in generic terms, from where we need to be.”

This is especially true within European football.

As a former Chief Digital Transformation & Innovation Officer of FIFA, Vicente asserts that it is “definitely considered easier for a football club to invest €20 million ($21.4m) in a player than it is to invest €200k ($214k) in a breakthrough technology solution [which would impact fan experience.]”

Of course, there are a number of structural reasons for this difference in approach between European and North American sports properties; Namely, the threat of relegation which forces European teams to think more short term and collaborate less with one another.

However, the blame does not sit entirely with relegation, “many times the different actors that can bring this [technological] transformation forward fail on their pitching and their capability to influence this process in the right way,” explains Vicente. Ultimately, you’re getting nowhere pitching technology for technology’s sake.
There are many instances, Vicente recalls, that teams, leagues, and vendors can fall “into the trap of selling a product, a service, or a project without connecting it with the strategic layer of the sports entity or even without caring about the roadmap, journey and the storytelling needed to get it done.”

This is a key differential for the NBA.

Their adoption of technology all fits into a cohesive vision for their sport and where they want it to go. Sometimes these implementations are successful, other times not. However, for years the NBA has stayed “loyal to have innovation as a central part of its strategy,” and continuously sought “improvements that make the difference.”

In the case of many of their recent technological indulgences on display, it appears they are currently focussed closely on the concept of hyper-personalisation. This is about making an effort to understand basic behaviours, motivations, and demographics, and then digging deeper into that data to facilitate experiences and interactions that are truly tailored to an individual.

NBA Africa @NBA_Africa

The NBA today announced the launch of the reimagined global NBA App, the all-in-one destination for NBA fans of every team. With entirely new personalization features, the NBA App will provide wall-to-wall content from every NBA game #NBAAfrica

This makes a lot of sense. Research by McKinsey & Co. has found that 71% of consumers now expect companies to deliver personalised interactions - a result of the expectations set by the likes of TikTok, Spotify, Instagram, and Amazon.

The study also outlined a direct correlation between personalisation and monetisation, with a customisation strategy generating a typical revenue uplift of between 10 and 15%, and up to 25% for online direct-to-consumer brands.

This could help to explain the timing of the recent avatar feature launched by the NBA. Although digital insertion into live media has been possible for some years, Vicente rationalises that for it to be successful, it needed to be part of this sophisticated, holistic approach taken by the NBA based on a “clear understanding of the relationship between [the] sport and its fans.”

So, while the technology on show at the NBA’s All-Star Weekend provides examples of what can be done, the lesson for other rightsholders is not just to imitate these new technologies. It is to identify changing fan behaviours and embed technology within solutions that meet both their fans’ and sports’ needs. It is to create a clear roadmap of where they are trying to go and be open to innovation and technology that can help them to get there. It is about having a vision.

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