I’m very impressed with what a marketing machine the NBA is. What power, force and know-how she is able to bring to the road. The NBA landed in the city like a spaceship a week ago and since then it has been a constant barrage of information, stories and images at the highest level. As a basketball player from Berlin, it was absolutely impossible to avoid it. My social media feeds have been consistently full of side events, game announcements and now recaps. Sometimes with 3-4 posts in a row from different sources. The NBA does this like no other. No comparison with the EL F4 a few years ago, for example, or BBL Finals.
At the center of everything they do are the images, which they then distribute via their own and partner channels. The production is so complex that they are able to reproduce A. Black’s dunk at any time in all possible settings and then highlight it. The storytelling around the game is state-of-the-art. This went beyond the classic basketball topics but went into music and lifestyle. Not least because of Luciano’s halftime show (whether you like him or not). Yesterday’s game was also a pop culture event with influencers, celebrities and of course football.
The game itself in the hall was probably the most complex thing I have ever seen in Berlin, including the manpower, technology and lighting. Everything that was possible was brought up. And overall it was a firework of constant stimuli. This works. However, there are also things that are difficult to get used to. It starts with the music during the game (I think there is a lack of respect for the game) to the thousand timeouts.
What was most noticeable to me was the lack of an organized fan block, their chants and their own initiative. This is an important building block of European basketball that must not be lost under any circumstances. Despite all the predictable singing, it still has an anarchic and archaic moment that brings a certain unpredictability to the whole thing – and with it tension and sometimes creativity.
