The NBA and Social Media: How One League Dominates the Sports Marketing World

The NBA has always been one of the most popular sports in America and more recently across the world, being part of the "Big Four" major sports. But part of the popularity of a league today is how they've adapted their marketing strategies into Social Media, which the NBA has excelled at and almost set the bar for leagues to follow. Not only have they completely digitized their entire company, by adding features like NBA League Pass to allow fans to subscribe to their very own streaming service to a complete 32 team e-sports league, the NBA has pushed their athletes and the teams they play for to take a more active role in social media.  The league lives on Twitter nowadays, with the majority of their fans, reporters and players actively engaging everyday, and it happened by the league just encouraging their employees to get active.

"Lifting the Hood"
One of the reasons the NBA is so popular on Twitter specifically is because that is where players have begun to open up to fans. NBA players represent a crossroads of sport and culture, and as T.J. Adeshola, Twitter's Head of Sports Content Partnerships put it in an sbnation interview, "Fans want to understand who played well, who won and lost, but they also want to know what LeBron is listening to. They love knowing [Rockets forward] P.J. Tucker is a sneaker head. These lifestyle insights inform users in ways they haven't been informed before" (SBnation.com).

Fans want to feel connected to the players they follow. The NBA more than any other league has a mimicking fan base. Kids play basketball in their gyms and driveways and yell "Kobe!" as they shoot, trying to make a shot like Kobe Bryant. Fans in pickup games attempt the signature James Harden step-back jumper. Amateur players use NBA coined celebrations in their own games and competitions. So when people find out what music LeBron James is listening too, or what shoes P.J. Tucker loves, it brings that same sense of imitation on a digital level. No other league gives insight into a players lives like they do.

Fast Paced Game meets Fast Paced Platform
Basketball is the fastest paced game in major sports. There are minimal stoppages, and players are constantly running up and down the court. The off-the-court antics are the same. Player trades and league news erupts 24/7, 365 days a year. Twitter was the perfect place for the league to create a partnership to grow their social media presence. According to Twitters Developers page, "Twitter's real-time nature is a major benefit to a league which is looking to capture reactions to games and live commentary" (Twitter.com). No other league has their fanbase constantly posting about their games and happenings like the NBA. While it wasn't an in-game event, when LeBron James left the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Los Angeles Lakers, there were 55,000 tweets per minute about his free agency signing (SBnation).  Per minute.

The results for the NBA have been astounding. They have been able to embed Twitter into their NBA Mobile app so fans can follow games and tweets real time. Fans have been able to view game recaps and highlights on Twitter, whether from the NBA account of their teams accounts. Fans see their favorite players outfits and shoes before games, and follow the lives of said players both on the court and off. Personally, the NBA is my favorite league social media world to engage in. Players engage with each other on a wide spectrum of creating beef and rivalries to congratulating and celebrating each other. Teams even engage with each other. For example, a few nights ago when the Charlotte Hornets were one game away from clinching the playoffs, and needed the Detroit Pistons to lose to the New York Knicks in order to get in, the Hornets social media team edited their logo to having a Knicks hat on and posted it, mentioning the Knicks in order to show their support for a team that had their future in their hands. No other league has the type of interactions and engagements that the NBA has, and if the NFL, NHL and MLB want to reach the type of fandom and following that the NBA has, they need to encourage their various accounts to become more open and free with their content.

How Dana White Grew The UFC In the Digital Age

Founded in November of 1993, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, more commonly known as The UFC has quickly become one of the more popular non major four sports in the United States. Being a niche sport and growing up in the digital age, Dana White, UFC Founder, along with the rest of the organization needed to dive head-first into today's most effective marketing strategies for sports: social media and streaming services. Their social media and content distribution tactics have made them a prime example of how a sports league can thrive in this technologically driven era.

The UFC is like most other fighting sports in how you can view their events. UFC offers Pay-Per-View for all of their big fights through traditional cable and satellite providers. However, they have branched out into different streaming services, like offering fights through gaming consoles, smart TV's, and Amazon. Most recently, ESPN bought out UFC's TV contract with Fox Sports for $1.5 billion (USAToday.com) and is revolutionizing how the sport is distributed. Not only will less popular UFC fights be broadcasted on basic ESPN cable, but thanks to ESPN+, the new subscription based streaming service offered by ESPN, their bigger events will be able to be streamed from any cable device, along with an on-demand feature containing a large fight catalog (ESPN.com). According to USA Today, "ESPN+ also will stream preliminary coverage for UFC's pay-per-view cards, which average about 12 per year." This is an enormous step for the sport to reach a broader audience and gain a larger following.

Social Media has been where The UFC has taken their biggest strides in regards to promotion however. "For a relatively niche sport to have 20 million followers across its different social media channels, with 80 brand accounts, is seriously impressive given that it has only been around for 24 years" (TheInnovateEnterprise.com). The same article references Forbes.com, which calculated that one of their most successful pay-per-view events had over 13 billion impressions, 3.2 million engagements on Facebook, 246 million impressions on Vine, had over one million uses of the custom UFC 200 emoji, as well as 4.3 million engagements on Instagram and over 270,000 new followers on Facebook. 

But the UFC had to have a strategy in place in order to create successful social media platforms. Dana White didn't grow a 43 million follower base across three platforms overnight. One of the biggest things the UFC excels at is telling a story, specifically what it is like to get in a UFC ring and be a UFC fighter. Only a select few people obtain the skill set to fight MMA, and fans love learning what it is like. Whether their posts include videos (both first and third person), pictures, live streams, fight updates etc., they do a fantastic job of engaging their fans. 

The UFC is no stranger to the world of influencers as well, which they find in house. Their fighters are the main attraction, and they use social media in an incredibly engaging way. Take Conor McGregor for example, former double UFC champion, and arguably the most popular UFC athlete on social media. Conor includes a wide variety of content styles that depict his life as a UFC fighter, allowing his audience to step into his shoes and learn about his life. McGregor has posts about training, videos of him in action, content about his wife and son, just to name a few. Casual fans aren't incredibly familiar with the inner workings of an MMA fighter, so that is how the UFC attracts social media followers, by having their athletes display their lives on full effect. This strategy is implemented from the lowest of fighters all the way up to their founder, Dana White. Not only does White promote every UFC fight and event on his Instagram, but posts highlights from fights as well as memes to engage his followers and keep them on their toes as to what to expect from his platform.

The UFC is a prime example on how a sports league should promote themselves in the age of social media. We have yet to see the full potential of this new form of marketing as teams and leagues are just getting their bearings on how to use this type of communication. The rest of the world needs to take some notes on how the UFC has done it so far, however. By giving an inside look into what life is like as a UFC athlete, branching out into new and improved content distribution services, and an aggressive promotion and content schedule, they are at the forefront of sports social media marketing today.