This season, the average NBA League Pass viewership in the Asia-Pacific region increased by 54% year-over-year, setting a new peak.
Text: Lin Yuan
On April 21, Beijing time, the first round of the 2023-24 NBA playoffs staged a strong dialogue: with Jokic's 32 points, 12 rebounds, 7 assists + 0 turnovers, the Nuggets 114-103 Lakers took the lead in qualifying, and James' road to revenge got off to a difficult start......
With the opening of the playoff mode, the "midterm report card" of the NBA, the world's most influential basketball league, has also been released recently.
According to the NBA's 2023-24 Interim Results Report, the NBA's online attention in the Asia-Pacific region this season has reached a record high, with a record-breaking increase in interactions on social and digital media platforms, and the number of hot search topics (including the total number of NBA-related topics on Weibo, Douyin, and Kuaishou in the top 50) reached an all-time high of 1,671, an increase of 20% from the previous season. Judging by these trends, the NBA will not be less hot during the playoffs.
Asia is home to nearly 5 billion people, accounting for 60% of the world's population. Among them, the number of social media users in East Asia and South Asia is about 2 billion, which is in a period of cost-effective demographic dividend, and is a market that any sports IP and brand is willing to reinvest. In particular, the NBA, which represents the highest level of basketball today, has two major trends to watch in the Asian market:
One is to increase the digitalization and localization efforts to bring rich and personalized viewing experiences to young people in China and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region, and the other is that more and more new ways to play are being introduced to China and the Asian market through the NBA, which represents the growing importance of Asian fans.
The sports business uses the NBA regular season as a sample of observation, hoping to get a glimpse of the layout of the NBA Asian map in 2024 through the trend of fans' viewing and interaction.
01
The "Lake Warrior War" has driven the increase in the willingness to pay to watch the game
Fan stickiness is activated
Originally, it was difficult to predict the ownership of the NBA championship this season, and the league whetted everyone's appetite from the opening game. James' 40,000-point record night, which has both feelings and discussions, completely ignited the enthusiasm of fans, and Doncic scored 73 points to set a new high for NBA active players in a single game, attracting a lot of attention and participation.
Let's start with the performance of NBA China. The three-dimensional communication of NBA App, Tencent, Migu, Weibo, Kuaishou and other platforms includes multi-scene content, and continues to get close to the younger generation of consumers.
Among them, since September last year, Tencent's NBA live broadcast and related hotspots have been rapidly heating up on the Internet.
In this season's NBA regular season, the total number of users covered by Tencent on all platforms increased by 64% compared with last season.
During the competition, Tencent's average audience for free games increased by 26% year-on-year, and the average audience for paid games increased by 30% year-on-year.
The big sports business noticed that the NBA's mid-season tournament (now known as the "Emirates NBA Cup") had an immediate effect on the league's ratings.
On Tencent's platform, the average number of deduplicated users per game of the first mid-season free games increased by 42% compared with the same period last season, and the average number of unique users per paid game increased by 65% compared with the same period last season.
The Lakers and Warriors are undoubtedly the super giants that drove the midseason ratings. Even if the Lakers are "ashore" and the Warriors say "good night" to the fans in advance, the "Lake Warrior War" still comprehensively crushes the princes from all walks of life in terms of fan appeal and ratings.
These data bring a more intuitive feeling: the live broadcast of the first NBA midseason "Lake Warriors", Tencent's average viewers of free games increased by 50% compared with the daily routine, and the two teams also stimulated fans' willingness to pay, making the number of paying for the "Lake Warriors" midseason games increase by 12 percentage points compared with the daily routine.
On the other hand, the strong IP of the NBA is more conducive to the development of streaming media such as basketball, because the abundance of digital content and means has an increasingly obvious effect on the cultivation of young fans.
During the inaugural NBA Midseason, viewership on NBA League Pass, the NBA's official streaming app, was 74 percent higher than on a regular game day.
Since the start of this season's NBA, the average viewership of NBA Leagues in the Asia-Pacific region has increased by 54% year-on-year, setting a new peak.
This season, Australia and the Philippines ranked first and second in the NBA international market in terms of average viewership and viewing time.
This may lead to the fact that China, Australia and the Philippines have become the de facto top three markets for digital content consumption in Asia.
It can be said that as one of the sports leagues with the highest ratings, the NBA uses its own and cooperative platform advantages to carry out differentiated operations based on fans' viewing habits, effectively reaching young fans and establishing emotional communication, and fan stickiness is also fully activated.
02
STARS SUCH AS WANG HEDI AND LE SSERAFIM
It has become a key piece of the puzzle for the NBA's rejuvenation
When we look back at Jordan's rookie season 40 years ago, the Chicago Bulls' attendance hasn't changed much because of his arrival. Jordan's first dunk in the NBA, which only received the attention of 13,000 fans, is unimaginable today.
As of December 2023, NBA leagues, teams, and players have more than 1.9 billion followers and likes on social media platforms. An NBA game can contribute hundreds of short videos to the network and be watched by hundreds of millions of people, which is difficult to match by any other major league.
The high level of attention has made the new champion Wembanyama's every move in his rookie season the focus of media attention. In addition to the advantages of the event platform, Wembanyama itself is also very good at creating topics.
Wembanyama in his rookie season has been able to rank third in the NBA's official media video views season. For the NBA, it continues to output diversified content on official and social and digital platforms, and makes organic adjustments to content according to the tonality of the platform and user preferences, especially the content consumption habits of young people, showing its determination to actively embrace the younger generation.
This season, the NBA has reached a number of digital communication milestones in Asia.
It is worth noting that Wang Hedi's appearance in the NBA Masters Game is an explosive hot event in China, and finally received 41 hot searches on Weibo and 4.5 billion views on all platforms.
In that game, Wang Hedi scored 8 points in a row to stop the game, shooting 9 of 15 from the field, scoring 18 points, 3 rebounds and 1 assist, helping Shannon's team win 100-91, and the number of deduplicated users watching live broadcasts on Tencent increased by 33% compared with the average paid games in the season.
In addition to the explosive hot spots, the league is also proving itself through the regular dissemination of data during the season: it has firmly grasped the largest potential sports market in Asia.
During the NBA regular season this season, the total number of video views of NBA officials and teams on social media platforms (Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou, WeChat, etc.) also reached an all-time high, an increase of 15% over last season, and the number of fan interactions (the sum of comments and likes) increased by 26%, a record high.
The Asia-Pacific market outside of China is no exception. This season, the NBA has partnered with more than 20 traffic stars and influencers from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, including the popular K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM. These celebrities have a total of 90 million followers, and continue to help the league be exposed on multiple channels from event promotion to value co-creation, which has allowed the event to heat up and become a hot topic on the whole network, and accumulate event culture for a long time.
For the first time in the Philippines, the NBA held a month-long celebration for NBA fans, "Republika ng NBA Theme Month". As a result, the NBA's social media accounts in the Philippines also attracted 116 million video views that month, setting a new record and becoming the most in the Asia-Pacific region.
03
Jankudu's ability to bring goods is outstanding
The NBA taps into the uniqueness of the Asian market
As young Asia's consumption habits diversify, they need to be offered more precise products and services.
The younger generation is willing to pay for their interests, and the alliance also pays attention to the integration of resources in the local market and strengthens cooperation within and outside the industry.
As of the end of March 2024, footfall to the three NBA flagship stores in Beijing, Guangzhou and Tianjin increased by more than 60% year-on-year, and online and offline sales of NBA flagship stores increased by more than double digits year-on-year.
James jersey is the No. 1 online seller in China
According to statistics, in the 2023-24 NBA regular season, the player with the strongest "carrying ability" in Tmall NBA flagship store, JD NBA official flagship store, Pinduoduo NBA official flagship store, Douyin NBA official flagship store, and WeChat NBA online mall is James, followed by Curry and Durant.
The Lakers took the lead in the franchise's licensed product sales charts, followed by the Warriors and Nets in second and third place, respectively. This also once again confirms the popularity of the "Lake Warrior War" in the Asian market, especially in the Chinese market.
NBA Team Licensed Products Sales List in China
The Los Angeles Lakers are in the lead
Coincidentally. As of February this year, sales in the NBA's online and offline stores in the Philippines have doubled year-on-year. It is worth mentioning that the traffic of the two Philippine NBA offline stores increased by more than 175% year-on-year.
If the NBA is the universal language of basketball, it is being learned by more young Asians, who are embracing basketball into their local youth culture by consuming items such as NBA jerseys.
The continuous increase in sales and customer traffic of NBA Asia-Pacific stores also confirms the fact that there is still a lot of room for exploration in the consumer market potential of the Asian basketball segment.
03
Playoff mode on
The positive trend in the Asia-Pacific market continues
In the big year of sports, a single sports IP needs to face not only the competition of other event IPs, but also the competition of the entire mobile Internet entertainment model, and the appetite of fans and pan-spectators is "growing".
In this season's NBA playoffs, the Heat and the Green Army have met for the third year in a row, and the Lakers and Clippers will show their fangs one after another, with the Nuggets, Mavericks, Pelicans and the mysterious Eastern Power blessing. Despite the turmoil the Timberwolves face in the capital markets, their excellent defense and roster depth may mean that the team is also a role to be reckoned with in the playoffs.
Of those 16 teams, only one team was able to lift the Larry O'Brien Trophy in June. For the NBA, adding games, community experiences, and digital platforms to give fans access to more high-value emotional experiences in games can further expand the fan base that the league has built up over decades in Asia.
The NBA's organic growth in the Asian market this season shows the rapid growth and future potential of basketball in Asia. It also shows that the NBA continues to invest in and deepen the Asian market, and continues to implement the process of localization and evolution.
We believe that Asian basketball still has room to rise in the commercial weight of the NBA, and the market is bigger, and there is every opportunity to run with the United States, and even have the opportunity to overtake in corners.