76ers’ digital activations collect millions of dribbles with HomeCourt
The Philadelphia 76ers are a mainstay within their community. Their engagement, local events, summer camps, and overall commitment to fans are among the best in sports.
Mike Goings, Director of Alumni & Youth Marketing for the organization, said, “Philly is very close-knit. We host a ton of events throughout the season and then offseason in the community.”
Like all of America, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut the country down, they needed to find a way to pivot that would allow them to maintain that connection.
With the cancellation of in-person activities, the Sixers were doing all they could to figure out how to keep some sense of normalcy. During their search, they turned to a digital strategy powered by HomeCourt — a mobile A.I. app for basketball, which “helped us to extend our reach beyond just doing in-person events,” said Goings.
“We don’t have our physical touch or reach in the community as much as we did before because of COVID. So the most helpful thing has just been the activities and the selection from HomeCourt.” — Chris Adams
Goings said HomeCourt had worked directly with the coaching staff before. HomeCourt made its way up to the team’s sports science department, and in the Summer of 2018, head coach Brett Brown was tracking the shooting progress of Markelle Fultz and Ben Simmons through the app.
Before the viral outbreak, the team had also worked with HomeCourt on a community-based fan challenge, participating in the NBA Hotshot Challenge leading up to All-Star 2020 in Chicago.
Shifting gears during COVID-19
With confidence in what HomeCourt could do to activate both athletes and fans, the 76ers created an “‘Al Horford Challenge” in the middle of April, as more people were under shelter-in-place statutes. The team let fans virtually compete against the five-time All-Star to see who could get the highest score on the “Killer Crossover” drill. To participate, users had to send in their video clips online and tag it with “@jr_76ers”, “@homecourtai” and “#stayinthegame”.
After seeing the initial responses they received through their social media channels, they decided to dive in headfirst on a deeper partnership with HomeCourt.
“We kicked off our social engagement, our Junior 76ers website, and everything youth-based during the hiatus with HomeCourt.“ — Chris Adams
The first “million dribbles” virtual summer camp
One thing that has separated the NBA from other sports leagues is their ability to connect with younger fans. A big part of that connection is youth development programs, primarily driven by participation in youth summer camps.
During COVID-19, most in-person summer camps were suspended, but that didn’t stop the 76ers from delivering. They already had a platform in place to support them in HomeCourt, Goings said, “We only saw about 750 kids come through in-person camps this summer when we normally would see about 3,000.”
The 76ers were among the first organizations to use new virtual Team features developed by HomeCourt for just these activations. The 76ers camp coaching staff could provide virtual workouts for campers and activate their brand partner in Rothman Orthopaedics digitally.
Rothman Orthopaedics is a mainstay at Wells Fargo Center, and on NBC Philadelphia broadcasts, Goings said, “they receive a ton of advertising during games, during the T.V. broadcast of games, in-arena signage and things of that nature.” The opportunity to move those brand activations to a new digital venue was compelling.
The Jr. 76ers Virtual Summer Camp presented by Rothman Orthopaedics kicked off on Monday, July 27, and was made available for free for all children ages 7 through 14. Youth players could participate from the comfort of their home and receive training from Jr. 76ers Youth Coaches and 76ers Alumni.
During their virtual camps this summer, the 76ers amassed 1.25 million dribbles and 29,000 shots over just a couple of months. The campers at the top of the leaderboards each tracked over 30,000 dribbles individually.
The Jr. 76ers Virtual Camp amassed over 1.25m dribbles and close to 30,000 shots in just a couple of months.
Despite condensing multiple weeks that would have gone towards holding their traditional camps into 50-plus hours spent on HomeCourt, the turnout and engagement were on par compared to what they usually produce at in-person events.
“After each session of the camp, we would offer different activities that the campers have to complete before the next day…reinforcing what was taught in the camp earlier that week.” — Mike Goings
This level of engagement wasn’t lost on either Goings or Adams, “our sponsorship team loved what we did both with the virtual camp and the HomeCourt challenge that the feedback was very positive in terms of how many kids we were able to engage. We pulled both of these activations together pretty quickly, and we were able to engage just as many kids,” said Goings.
“[Rothman Orthopaedics] received more value in terms of impressions, engagement, and advertising than they normally would with just the camp.” — Mike Goings
The 76ers collaboration with HomeCourt blazed a trail for other sports programs to follow.
Allen Iverson Runs Practice
Though a global health crisis brought on this switch to a more prominent digital presence, the Sixers organization feels that they have found something that will be a vital asset moving forward.
As Goings put it, HomeCourt allows the team to “meet kids where they are. Most kids are on their phones. Most kids have access to an iPhone or iPad. Most kids are on social media.”
To take the digital experience to yet another level this fall, it landed in the hands of none other than beloved Philadelphia sports figure, Allen Iverson.
Rather than have fans attempt to outperform Iverson on a preset drill within HomeCourt, they put their own branded content inside of it, leaning into the legendary status of A.I.’s crossover moves.
Goings detailed the challenge as “using his highlights and his signature move to encourage kids to go in the HomeCourt app and try the crossover drill to win a shout-out from Allen Iverson.”
New ways to engage and activate
Users were also rewarded for continued use of HomeCourt outside of the A.I. activation campaign.
Adams explained how they incorporated different badges that players could collect as they continued to use the app, “So once you achieve a badge we wanted it to represent what our brand is and what that specific badge look like so with our 76ers branded badge…we just took it a step further with our sponsorship integration with the badges. So whenever somebody achieves a badge for the 76ers, they’ll see that Rothman logo when they achieve that”
Using HomeCourt, “more eyes see the product and see the brand then normally would,” said Goings.
The start of something big
After putting together two challenges this year, they now know that they can get brands more involved and offer a new path towards fan engagement and community work. It even opens up the team to connect more with other digital brands.
“What we have tried to strive for with a lot of the activations that we’ve put into place during this pandemic is not just to make it one-offs, make it something that we can replicate moving into the future.” -Mike Goings
Since the challenges can have a variety of levels, Goings said, “ it enables different engagements that we can create that attract more of that digital space and can suit products that may be able to activate digitally through HomeCourt.”
However, it wasn’t just the kids and brands that enjoyed this new virtual experience. Parents were big fans of it too. According to Goings, “they love the HomeCourt aspect because, for their kids, it was much more engaging, it was challenging.”
“We utilized HomeCourt to build this community of kids that are engaged in basketball and love basketball” — Chris Adams
It is only the beginning for the Sixers, and Goings said, “we’ve created something that can fit multiple brands moving forward.”
With the NBA having a strategic partnership and equity stake with NEX Team Inc., it won’t be long before the other 29 teams follow the Sixers’ path to keep themselves engaged with their fans and communities.
