With Finals, NBA pushes basketball beyond borders
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stepped up to the podium at Oracle Arena, one hour before the Warriors and Cavaliers tipped-off in Game 1 of the league Finals.
It was a triumphant moment for pro basketball’s most powerful figure. A moment where he could bask in the klieg lights of such a high-wattage matchup between the world’s two best basketball teams.
In his introductory remarks Thursday, Silver immediately thanked media members from around the world who had been credentialed for the NBA Finals. Then, after a brief congratulatory remark aimed at both teams, the slender commissioner went right back to his preferred talking point.
“This is of course a global event,” said Silver. “We have global members of the media here. These games will be carried in 215 countries and territories around the world, and we project that over 1 billion people will either watch some
portion of these Finals or engage through social media either with a highlight or directly with the league or players. So roughly 1 out of 7 people on this planet will have a direct connection to these Finals, which is pretty spectacular.”
And that, my friends, is the big picture when it comes to the NBA. It doesn’t really matter if Steph Curry and the Warriors win the championship. Or whether LeBron James and his Cavs prevail. The long game for Silver and his predecessor David Stern, has always been globalization. Create a great product and market it around the world. From the looks of things, the league has achieved that goal.
Media representatives from 35 countries have come to the U.S. to cover these Finals. That includes 16 international networks, spread from Belgium to China to Japan to Taiwan to Spain. The league says it has created the largest social media community in the world, with “more than 1.3 billion likes and followers globally across all league, team and player platforms.”
The aforementioned James, widely acknowledged as the world’s best player, has over 90 million followers across the social media landscape, all by himself.
The numbers and the reach are staggering. We’re talking the World Cup of soccer, the Summer Olympics and the NBA Finals. These are the biggest events on Earth, and I’m not talking just sports. How did we get here? From China to Mexico to India to Brazil, the NBA has engaged in outreach work for years, developing media and marketing partners, funding youth programs and connecting with government officials. The business community is also pushing the brand. The Warriors’ Curry, thanks to his Under Armour partner, is absolutely huge in China.
During the Finals, the league will hold viewing parties in Brazil, China, the Philippines, Mexico and India. Thousands are expected to attend. Millions of fans will be watching on TV.
In fact, league sources say 10.6 million unique viewers in China watched Game 1 through Internet streaming alone. That’s a record, and a 26 percent increase over last year. In both Mexico and Brazil, the NBA reports a 50 percent increase in TV ratings.
Slowly but surely, basketball is gaining ground on soccer as the most popular sport on the planet.
“Basketball is already the No. 1 sport in China,” said Arnon deMello, vice president and managing director for NBA Latin America, an arm of the league that works to spread the game internationally. “The NBA started expanding its brand and game globally a long time ago. We have more basketball courts in Mexico than we have soccer pitches. In Brazil, we’re going in that same direction.”
The global movement is self-evident as you make your way around an NBA Finals game. It feels liked a United Nations convention, with different languages spoken at every turn. Personally, my favorite memory was an Israeli TV crew stopping Steph Curry and asking him to pronounce the Hebrew inscription the player had tattooed on his wrist. Curry struggled and the crew was enchanted. Everyone is looking for an angle that will play well back home.
Warriors’ center Zaza Pachulia has a unique perspective on the NBA’s growth pattern. He grew up in the republic of Georgia. He started playing seriously in Turkey, before coming to the U.S. He’s now finishing his 14th NBA campaign.
“It started with David Stern, and now Adam Silver,” said Pachulia, after the Warriors won Game 1 over the Cavs. “They did a good job, with business perspective and having a vision. I remember growing up in Georgia, then playing in Turkey. We could only see one game per week.
“Now, people watch more games. People have the opportunity to get to know the players, on the TV or social media. They are becoming more and more interested.”
They sure are. But the NBA isn’t satisfied. Silver and his colleagues want more from China. Players, to be exact.
“It frustrates me that there are no Chinese players in the NBA right now,” said Silver, who saw the great potential when the Chinese star Yao Ming came to play in the NBA. “There’s probably more basketball being played in China than anywhere else in the world.
“I've made this point before, ... when you look at Lithuania, when you look at Serbia, when you look at Latvia, countries that have populations of less than 10 million, and all three of those countries with several NBA players, how can it be that a country of 1.3 billion people where there's an enormous amount of basketball being played has no NBA players right now?”
You could tell it was driving the commissioner nuts.