#NBALondon: A Social Media Preview

On January 16th 2014, London’s O2 arena welcomes back NBA action as the Atlanta Hawks take on the star-studded Brooklyn Nets. Tickets for the Hawks v Nets game sold out in record time, making it the eighth consecutive sell-out NBA game at the O2 in London.

 

The Teams

Atlanta Hawks

This isn’t be the Hawks first time in London, they took part in the NBA’s first ever preseason games in London in 1993 with back-to-back games against the Orlando Magic.

Hawks

As the team who gave up their home game for this London event, the Hawks have been making London their home away from home by using the #ATLondon hashtag. The Hawks have also created ATLondon Central on their website, acting as a hub for all London related content.

The Hawks have been the more vocal of the two teams in the build up to London 2014 and created this Vine of Al Horford holding up the British flag on media day at the start of pre-season training camp.

Currently the Hawks have 570,696 fans on Facebook of which 2,778 (0.5%) are from the UK.

 

Brooklyn Nets

This will be the Nets’ third game in London after playing the Miami Heat in a pre-season match in 2008 and taking part in the first regular season games in the UK with back-to-back games against the Toronto Raptors.

The Nets have a star-studded line-up this year including Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce who are the 14th and 20th top scorers in NBA history respectively. In their ranks they also have Olympic gold medallist Deron Williams (who hasn’t travelled due to injury), one-time NBA Champion Jason Terry and in Brook Lopez they have one of the league’s top big men. Not to mention their coach – number 2 in the NBA’s all-time assist leaders – Jason Kidd.

Nets

Awareness of the Nets has also grown over recent years thanks to the previous involvement of Jay Z in the franchise. Great Britain Head Coach, Joe Prunty, is on the Nets coaching staff, giving them another link to the UK.

Since their arrival the Nets have been using #HelloLondon, an adaption #HelloBrooklyn – a hashtag they adopted when the franchise moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn.

Currently the Nets have 1,429,465 fans on Facebook of which 6,213 (0.4%) are from the UK.

Both the Hawks and Nets have been very active around London since arriving and taken the opportunity to reach out to new audiences by creating content with Chelsea FC and Fulham FC.

 

NBA UK

NBA UK, whose Facebook page hit 100,000 fans on January 12th, have been using their social channels to count down to #NBALondon for some time. They have been running a Hawks themed trivia question each week, utilised user-generated content to make a new Facebook cover photo and been closely following the fortunes of the Hawks and Nets over recent weeks.

NBA UK have also launched #HUNTFORNBA, a scavenger hunt around central London for the chance to win tickets to the game tomorrow.

NBA’s UK broadcast partner, BT Sport, have also got in on the act by featuring the NBA London event on their BTSP show and giving away tickets on social channels.

 

Legacy

All of this content and interaction is great, as an NBA fan it’s amazing to see so much hype and excitement about basketball, but will this week’s game leave behind any lasting legacy?

NBA teams have been playing games in the UK for a number of years now, and with all events at the O2 selling out since 2007, it paints a great picture, but as an avid NBA fan I feel no team has fully taken advantage of the opportunity presented to them in the UK.

As a Detroit Pistons fan, it was great to see the team I’ve supported for over 10 years play for the first time in January this year – but in terms of reaching new fans and leaving a legacy, it seemed like the Pistons (and Knicks) missed an opportunity and didn’t seem to have long term objectives in mind.

  • In the build up to, during and after the event there were no real calls to action to follow either team on social media
  • The Pistons gave up a home game for the event, yet the Knicks were clearly the most popular team in the arena – could the Pistons have reached out to fans in the months building up to the event and tried to make it feel like a home game?
  • Neither team made a lasting impression on the UK fan base

 

Why Does This Matter?

Why should the NetsHawks and NBA care about social media, fan bases and creating a legacy from the NBA London event?

From a community and growing the game point of view, there’s an opportunity to inspire a generation of young basketball players in London and across the UK. Basketball is the second highest participation sport amongst 11-15 year-olds over here and this event can help to inspire the youngsters to continue playing the sport, and influence them to grow up as NBA fans.

From a commercial point of view building an engaged fan base creates additional revenue opportunities for the NBAHawks and Nets. The UK event also creates opportunities for NBA partners and sponsors to engage with a UK fan base.

Will NBA London 2014 create any lasting legacy? Check back here on the UK Sports Network next week and I’ll be talking about this subject in greater detail.

For more on NBA and social media in the UK, check out the NBA UK report below:

 

About author

Ash Read
Ash Read 13 posts

Ash is a social media community manager, planner and strategist focusing on the world of sports. He writes for a couple of blogs, tweets and, outside of the office, can usually be found on a basketball court or football pitch. Ash is currently working as a Freelance Community Manager at TMW and Senior Account Manager at specialist sports social media agency, We Play. You can follow Ash on Twitter at @ashread14

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