Babble about the bubble
In a matter of weeks, @NBABubbleLife went from goofy idea to viable social media strategy with nearly 130,000 Twitter followers. There’s a real chance the concept could change the landscape of sports media.
Four basketball disciples took their group chat public last month, and there’s a real chance it could change the landscape of sports media.
In a matter of weeks, @NBABubbleLife went from goofy idea to viable social media strategy with nearly 130,000 Twitter followers as their proof of concept.
The account and its founders — Drew Ruiz, Nick DePaula, Travonne Edwards and Wells Phillips — have been profiled recently in The New York Times, The LA
Times, Forbes and on ESPN’s NBA show “The Jump.”
@NBABubbleLife aggregates the social media feeds of NBA players, providing a sneak peek inside the Disney World bubble. The more off-beat, the better. There’s a video of Ben Simmons dropping a fish. There’s one of Jevon Carter getting a jar of candied yams from his mother.
Guys are playing cornhole, riding bikes and golfing — terribly.
Most importantly, the @NBABubbleLife quartet hasn’t followed any of the usual conventions of NBA coverage.
There are no rumors, no trade speculation and no reports of which coach or GM might be getting fired.
Instead, it’s all love and positive vibes … and J.J. Reddick shot-gunning a beer.
In the copycat world of sports, there’s a real chance the approach could catch on.
Here’s a brief chat with the social media strategists. (Answers have been edited for clarity and length.)
QUESTION: You guys seem to have created a new lane. Your account provides data that shows how much fans enjoy positive, fun content. If more media companies go this way, what would it mean for you?
DePaula:
(sneaker industry reporter for ESPN): You know, the biggest thing for us was just knowing the climate and what people were going with across the board.
We didn’t want it to just be NBA guys complaining about their food, which was kind of the narrative early on.
We’ve had people say they look forward to their lunch break, because they enjoy looking at the timeline. People who say they watch shows every night with their wives at 7, and now they’re checking out the Bubble Life.
All four of us, we love the sport, but we always love being positive and promoting the best side of it. We don’t try to dabble in the gossip stuff. We always want to be positive.
Hopefully other media accounts can see that, and maybe they can start to look at things more positively, too.
Q: It feels like a return to a previous a era when sports coverage was much more focused on personalities. Was that intentional?
Edwards:
(NBA analyst for The Athletic and co-founder of Count the Dings podcast network): I think that we definitely focused on personalities, because it’s off-the-court content.
What we do represents a chance for guys to express themselves and not just be some rich athlete. They can show different sides of themselves.
If this does change the way sports media companies go about their business, that would be a huge deal for us, collectively, to be a small part of that -even if we’re really just a fly on a big window.
Especially with so much negativity in 2020. It’s nice to highlight something
positive.
Q: This year has been awful. What would it mean for you to be a bright spot? And is it appropriate for us to be having fun with all that's going on?
Ruiz:
(content creator for LA’s summer pro-am, the Drew League): It’s a tough time with the pandemic, with all the racial injustices going on, with us losing key figures in society and in sports. We just wanted to shed a positive light.
Honestly, that’s the gist of it. The world has been tough. I was taking social media in micro-doses, because it’s been tough for me to accept everything.
Everybody should mourn these times the way that they feel is right.
We’re not joking and laughing about what’s going on, but I didn’t want everything that’s happening in the world to bring me lower than I already was.
This is why we launched the Bubble Life.
We’re making a positive change. We’re even gonna launch a T-shirt that benefits a charity.
Q: What do you hope is next? Phillips:
(LA-based DJ): At this point, we don’t know. If the NBA goes into another bubble in December, hopefully, we’re right back at it.
In the meantime, it’s like Drew said, getting the charity shirt out, letting people know that it’s OK to grieve however you grieve.
But we wanted to do our part to try to bring joy to the people that we can.
Seeing some of the messages, like Nick was saying, how we make people’s day.
That’s everything. Because right now, if you flip on the news at 8 in the morning, your day can be ruined by 8:10.
If people can just take a time out to have a laugh 20 or 30 minutes, that’s what we’re about, and I wouldn’t have rather done this with anyone else.
We’re just kinda taking our group chat to the world, and it’s been a dope ride.