Why The NBA’s Social Media is more Popular Than the Other Major Sports
The NBA is one of the fastest-growing sports leagues in the world. According to Nielsen Sports Sponsorlink, the number of fans went up 4% from the 2016–17 season to the 2017–18 season. Despite this surge in popularity, the NBA becoming the most popular sports league in the United States is still a distant future.
On Saturday October 20th, the Western Conference finalists Houston Rockets faced off against LeBron James’s new-look Lakers. It was only the second game of an 82 game season for each team, yet it drew a 2.5 overnight rating, the highest-rated NBA regular season game on ESPN since the Warriors 73rd win game two years ago and Kobe Bryant’s final game on April 13, 2016. These games had a rating of a 2.7 and 2.6 respectively. The NBA’s ratings in these games are still minuscule compared to that of other sports leagues. In the 2018 NFL season, the lowest rated nationally televised game so far received a 4.2 rating. In 2017, the NBA had 4 appearances in the top 50 highest rated games, more than any other non-NFL sport. The NBA still came nowhere near close to the NFL. It’s highest rated game was the 5th game of the 2017 NBA Finals in which it had a 13.5 rating, the 18th highest game of the year in any sport. It was beaten out by 4 NFL regular season and 11 NFL postseason games, the College Football Championship, Game 7 of the MLB world series. The 2017 Superbowl took home an unrivaled 45.3 rating, nearly doubling the next best rating of 26.3, also set by the NFL.
Some of this disparity is a result of the many fewer games played by the NFL. The NFL season is comprised of 16 regular season games and single-elimination playoff games and the NBA is comprised of 82 games and playoff series that are best of 7. Even accounting for this difference in games, the NBA is still not the most popular league. The NBA produces less in revenue than the MLB, which has an 162 game season, and the NFL.
Despite the NBA’s smaller popularity compared to these other leagues, the NBA has the largest imprint on social media by far. Their followers among each platform dwarf the other major sports leagues. Below is a table illustrating how many more followers, subscribers, likers, etc. the NBA has in their respective sports.
In the NBA 33 players with at least 2 million followers on Instagram and in the NFL there are only 9.
In 2018, the NBA was tweeted about over 100 million times, more than any other sports league. On reddit, the /r/nba subreddit is one of the most active communities on the entire site despite not being one of the most subscribed to subreddits. In June 2017, it was third in comments on the entire site even despite only being the 75th most subscribed-to subreddit.
One reason the NBA is so popular on social media is they are very lenient with letting fans post highlights and content from games. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, “It is completely beyond our hands, but at the same time, we can help facilitate it.” Silver’s philosophy is that “the games are the meals and the highlights are the snacks. And we encourage our fans to snack before meals. But the meals are pristine and the meals live behind a paywall.” The NBA’s vast popularity on social media helps expand their audience and get more people to watch their games. When the NBA, unlike the much more restrictive MLB and NFL, allow fans to post NBA content, they are essentially getting free advertising.
Another reason the NBA is so popular on social media is because it is a great place for news. NBA fans love social media because they can find out news the second it happens. Players often find out they are traded from social media reports before they find out from their organization. News in the NBA can stand out from other sports as there tends to be a great deal of drama within it. Much of this drama takes place on social media itself, which causes fans to stay on social media to follow. Fans enjoy going on NBA social media because they can immerse themselves in the sport. They become members of a community where they can feel a part of the action and discuss it with other passionate members.
When an outlandish story begins, NBA fans love following it as it unfolds. Fans will put on post notifications for reporters on twitter, and constantly refresh their feed. Redditors refer to this as “F5 season”, due to F5 being the button that causes a webpage to refresh on some computers. During it, many users spam “F5” on posts and spend hours on end refreshing the reddit.com/r/nba/new. “F5 season” tends to happen during free agency, the trade deadline, or when juicy story is developing.
DeAndre Jordan’s free agency decision in 2015 was one of the first major story that had online NBA fans in hysteria was and likely resulted in the birth of “NBA Twitter”. Free agent center DeAndre Jordan made a verbal agreement to leave the Los Angeles Clippers and sign with the Dallas Mavericks. Once a free agent makes a verbal agreement during the free agent moratorium, players are expected to and nearly always follow through on their promise. When it was reported that Jordan was considering changing his mind and re-signing with the Clippers, it sent twitter into a frenzy. Dallas Maverick Chandler Parsons sent a cryptic emoji of an airplane, and Los Angeles Clipper Blake Griffin responded with emojis of an airplane, helicopter, and car, representing how he planned on flying from his vacation to DeAndre Jordan to convince him to say. Los Angeles Chris Paul then responded with a satrical tweet manner alluding to a popular picture of him on a banana boat with NBA stars LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.
Fans loved deciphering these messages and stayed active trying to figure out what would happen next. Heaps of NBA teams and former and active players joined in on making their own versions of cryptic emoji tweets. Paul Pierce struggled with how emojis worked, and posted a picture of one instead.
Even the Cleveland Browns tried getting into the action, but it did not go over great with their fans.
Reporter Chris Broussard added to the drama by seemingly fabricating a ludicrous report, which Mavericks owner Mark Cuban responded to himself. Broussard later apologized.
The peak of all the drama was when Blake Griffin tweeted a picture of a chair propped up against a door in what appeared to be DeAndre Jordan’s house.
DeAndre Jordan choosing to call off his signing with the Dallas Mavericks would already be a fascinating story on its own. Fans having the opportunity to see minute-by-minute updates along from reporters along with comedic input and thoughts from players elevated the experience to new heights. Much of the fun in the NBA comes from stories like these rather than the game itself, and fans can immerse themselves in these stories and feel as if they are a part of it themselves.
NBA fans love being on social media because they know the players are too. Fans like knowing that the players are doing the same thing they are, which accentuates the feeling of being a part of a community. It is a great feeling to be a part of something their favorite athletes are as well. Without social media, it is nearly impossible to contact or interact with athletes. With it, players can directly answer fan questions, or respond to fan insults. Fans take delight in knowing that a player might see their post, even if they do not respond.
It’s no secret that players are on Instagram and Twitter as they have accounts where they make public posts. There are also secret accounts that players have on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit as well. Players do this so they can read and comment on posts without being judged or bothered by the public. Brooklyn Net Jarrett Allen recently commented that he has been on Reddit for years.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that even he had a secret Twitter account, which naturally led to an all-out investigation by a fan on social media to find it.
Another reason fans love social media is they can get into heated arguments about players and fans. Kevin Durant made a mistake of accidentally responding to criticism on his public account instead of a private, secret account. Durant insulted his previous team and received a lot of disapproval from fans on Twitter for doing so. It was also questioned why he felt the need to respond to random fans on Twitter when he is a superstar making millions a year.
This too, naturally led to investigations from fans and reporters trying to find out his secret account. Bryan Colangelo was also fired from his job as general manager for the Philadelphia 76ers when it was discovered that his wife had been making tweets disparaging and insulting players, along with tweeting classified information that her husband had told him.
Fans also love social media because of the disputes that take place on it. They range from serious to light-hearted, and happen between players, reporters, teams, and even executives. Fans are able to join in on the action too by taking sides and getting in heated debates with people supporting the opposing sides in the comment section.
Fan debates can get ludicrous and people will take sides in just about anything, including which NBA reporter is better. Below is a tweet made by NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski with a photoshopped picture of his getting dunked on by another NBA reporter, Shams Charania.
NBA social media is about more than simply the game of basketball. It matters because fans are able to be a part of a massive and passionate community. They can follow the stories as the are happen and become a part of it themselves.