NBA: a digital empire that breaks records in social networks and in its application

The NBA entered the playoff stage of the 2022-2023 season, with great numbers on his impact on social networks and digital platforms, which serve to demonstrate its global reach and also to reflect the success of its own products launched in the last year. His digital empire provides context for a conversation that is beginning to open up in the United States regarding the next rights sales cycle from the 2024-2025 season, with revenues that could triple.

At the end of its regular season, the NBA achieved an all-time record for an Instagram account: surpassed 13 billion video views, above any other publication on that platform. In the accumulated of all social networks, NBA had over 32 billion video views10 percent above the previous year.

The total visits on social networks totaled 18 billion, the highest number for a sports league and with the arrival of 14 million new followers on their networks. Besides, With 78 million followers, the NBA is the 8th most followed global brand on Instagram.

The high level of interactions is completed with a superlative fact that comes from YouTube: the NBA became the first professional sports league that exceeds 20 million subscribers and with 12 billion video views throughout the life cycle of its content. every 90 days recorded 75 million unique users who, on average, watched more than 35 minutes of content on the channel.

The globalizing notion of the NBA is in good health: 70 percent of its social media followers live outside the United States and 50 percent of that audience is 25 or younger, the key data for all sports organizations looking to engage the elusive Generation Z. LeBron James is by far the NBA figure with the most views on his posts (1.3 billion) and followed by Steph Curry with 881 million..

The figures are also relevant within the digital ecosystem built by the NBA itself. Its reformulated application, launched in September 2022, had 40 percent more downloads than the previous year, driven by a greater amount of content, a “stories” format and vertical videos such as on social networks and a membership called “NBA ID”. ” that allows subscribers to access prizes and benefits.

Within its application, the NBA counted -until the end of the regular season- more than 1 billion video views, triple the number of the previous year. Innovation within the platform peaked when, prior to the start of the All Star Game, Commissioner Adam Silver introduced augmented reality functionality that allows the user to “become” a player and score points virtually within a royal match.

Spectators in stadiums was another phenomenon this season, with data returning to euphoria of pre-pandemic levels: more than 22 million tickets sold, 97 percent capacity in stadiums and a total of 791 sold-out games.

In addition, the NBA will offer another novelty this week: the opening on April 19 of the NBA Park in Gramado, Brazil, the largest theme park in the world with 15 different attractions, as well as shops, gastronomy and a museum. It will occupy a space of 4 thousand square meters. It also promises an instagrammable area.

In 2022, the NBA surpassed the barrier of 10 billion dollars in commercial revenue for the first time. In the 2024-2025 season, a new cycle of sales of NBA television, streaming and digital rights will begin and market estimates indicate that the league could raise between 50 billion and 75 billion dollars for those packages. Currently, it is ESPN and TNT who have those rights, for which the NBA received close to 24 billion dollars.

Also in television rights, NBA numbers always tend to go up.