The NBA Playbook for Changing How Games Are Watched

Senior VP of New Media to the League. Thanks for coming in, Jeff, thanks for having me. Well, uh, I think when you take that this is two of my favorite things. Are gonna be talking about both the NBA and media innovation. There's no way I'm not going to enjoy this conversation, I hope. So I'm actually curious to start with what the league thinks of what you do. Is this something that it's sort of like, Okay, these are a little experimental one offs. Let's hope everything works okay,

or is it no? This is crucial the future. Well, maybe let me start with describing what I'm responsible for. Um, I lead the New Media Group, as you said, which is responsible for the digital licensing business of the NBA, and it's pretty wide ranging. It includes, as you said, it includes social media, it includes um making highlights available, but it also includes making games available, UM in in the digital space, and it includes more emerging technology. So

it's not just about innovation. Innovation is a huge part of it, especially because it's a space that's constantly innovating and we've got to keep up with it. But it's also a pretty big business for us, So UM it's look looked at as a whole. I think today it's

it's big business relative to more traditional linear media. It's not it's not maybe that big, but it's it's really rapidly growing, one of our fastest growing areas, and we recognize given that growth, given the trajectory, that it's going to be really really important for the future. So the innovation that we are doing in this space is really important for the long term health of the league. And

you were also innovating on the air. I mean, one of the things that I think has been done that was so interesting a number of different ways, uh in this past season was the typical broadcast experience. You know, you've got your play by play and your color guy, and uh, you really shook that up a little. Was that something that was a big priority. It's it's a continuing, really big priority and one that has um come from an insight. I think that came from Adam and that

is that Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA. And you know, we we've had um the relatively similar broadcast for decades. Uh you know. Sure, of course, when uh TVs went to color, we went to color, and when they went to high definition, we went to we went to high definition. But the the broadcast, the shape of the broadcast, the format has stayed relatively consistent throughout that period. Been a while, the technology around it and the fan

behavior around it has rapidly evolved. So we began taking a fresh look at the presentation of the game and realize that there's still there's a lot that we could do. Now. We want to maintain some sense of that familiar broadcast, but we think we can also introduce some some new ideas that like, give me an example of one of the things you did this past season. Well, you know what, one of the areas that we've been focused on innovating

is the is the the audio, the commentary. And you know, I I UM, I think if you've watched NBA games, you've got this incredible commentary of these experts who are providing play by playing color throughout every single game games a season. But um, you know, not everybody wants to engage with the game the same way. You might be, for example, a really deep fantasy player or or somebody who's really interested in analytics. Watching the typical broadcast, you

won't get a real deep analysis from that point of view. So, UM, those kinds of things we've begun to experiment with providing alternative audio um from a variety of different perspectives. And I would imagine part of that is you want to bring in new voices that bring in new viewers or younger viewers. Isn't that really the challenge across all the platforms you're working on. It's about how does a new generation of NBA fan who didn't necessarily grow up on

TV stay engaged with the product. That's a big part of it. Um. You know, one of the things I think the fan base has come to expect is choice. Um. You know, because they have so much choice in their entertainment. Um, they have so many different platforms to choose from, which have many different competitive advantages among them, so they come to expect choice, and I think it's a mistake to

not provide that kind of choice. So choice whether it's in the presentation of the game, the audio broadcast and other things like that as we talked about, or in the ways that they can be, the places they can watch it, whether they can watch it on their phone or they can watch it on their connected device so they can watch it on linear television. And in the the ways they transact with us. They a cable subscriber, great, if they're not, then maybe they want to subscribe to

something like Leak Pass. And then within League Pass, we've innovated um in in in choice around transacting with us as well. So you've got now the ability to purchase a single game, and you've have ability to purchase the game by quarters. So choice has become a really important theme. And uh it is for the purpose of reaching more fans and giving fans more options so that they have

fewer reasons not to watch the game. And we should explain League passes this digital get every game you possibly could want, every day of the season feature that has always been a little rich for my blood. But when you start talking about this flexible pricing which you just started with last year, what has been the results of that early experimentation. Well, you know, last year we introduced a whole new layer of choice, as you just said,

and especially those quarterly options. But we've been experimenting with choice throughout the history of Leak Pass and it began with uh, that kind of all you can eat, full, complete, comprehensive option. But then we introduced things like a team option, so you could choose to just follow your team. I should say that in the United States, the local games are blacked out. Those aren't available to watch if you're if you're in l A, you're not going to get

um clip Clippers games. Uh. Within leak Past, you can watch them on your on your local R S N. But um, but we've over time we found that writing more option was really only additive. There there's always a question you have to ask, sort of a strategic question. If we provide this optionality, are people are gonna fewer people going to subscribe to the big package and just start you know, uh, purchasing quarters And it doesn't end up being that that's the case, that surprises me. Yeah,

it doesn't really. Um, it doesn't surprise me because it has a totally different value proposition. And um, you know, the the smaller packages like a quarter or an individual game end up serving as great sampling opportunities. Uh. So you know, somebody who might um just purchase a single game ends up being a great candidate for us to market the full package. So so optionality ends up being additive. Um, we have to I think we have to ask ourselves

that question and look at that data every time. But so far, so good on that front, it's been it's been additive for us. And another thing that I think there's been some experimentation on, I forget it was within League past Or is different camera angles and allowing viewers to control that. M Are we going to see more

of that in this coming season? Well? You know, one of the I think, just to kind of provide a specific example that I thought was really cool that goes kind of even beyond just alternate camera angles with Summer League this year, which is a a tournament that we that is based in Los Angeles where in Las Vegas,

excuse me, las of Las Vegas. I'm in Los Angeles, in Las Vegas where some of the newer, younger players compete, and we do a lot of experimentation around Summer League and UM together with our partner Turn Sports, we UM shot a whole game live using phones and and five g um. So it was and it was really cool perspective. It was not only was it alternate camera angles, but because of the nature of you know, shooting and watching on a on a phone, it just kind of felt

like this guerrilla broadcast. UM. So we've been experimenting a lot with alternate camera angles and and alternate ways to provide that sense of access and immersion around the game. I think that's going to continue that. I know that will absolutely continue throughout throughout the season. UM nothing specific to announce, but we're still in exploration and experimentation mode.

But with with our direct to consumer products, you'll absolutely see more around the alternate audio and more around providing interactive features like graphical overlays, and will continue to experiment with things like alternate camera angles. Like like you said, and there's a part of me that loves to experiment

that stuff. There's also a part of me that I think I speak for a lot of people that are kind of lazy and just want to have the whole thing presented as opposed to making me sort of the guy in the in the book, I don't think. Yeah, I think in most cases it's great to have the optionality for for those kind of super duper fans who are not lazy and who want to engage and almost provide their own production of of a live game. But most people are like you and like me, want to

lean back and have that kind of experience. So um, I think the foundational experience has to be this wonderfully produced, delivered kind of experience, and that's that's what we'll be

focusing on. Optionality happens, and interactivity happens around around that, and maybe that one person wants to interact with stats and we'll try to have that feature, and then somebody else wants to interact with getting more of those, um those different kinds of camera angles, and maybe that just having those options for different people bring them in and

they interact with the game in different ways. One of the things that and then over time, by the way, as we learn more about our fans and the way they engage with it, it might be possible to provide these more custom experiences on an automated basis. That's still a little ways out, but it could be a more personalized broadcast cast based on your preferences as we learned

about you. But one of the interesting balancing acts that we have to perform is between mean, this idea of customization and personalization that we're talking about and feeling like what what is so important to two fans is feeling like you have a shared experience, like we're watching the

same game. Uh, you know. It's one of the things I think that makes sports so different is that, um, whether you're watching it in the same room together, or whether you're chatting with your friends on Twitter, or whether you're just talking about it the next day around the water cooler, there's a kind of network effect to the fact that we're all fans together. We enjoy the game more because we know people who are also enjoying the game,

and you can't disrupt that. You have to be careful not to create an experience that's so personalized that when you get when you get to the water cooler, you're talking about two different experiences. You still want it to be, at its at its foundation, a very social experience. It's interesting to think about that sort of collective experience. Thinking back to trying NBA virtual reality, which you think virtual reality, Oh,

you put the helmet on, it's isolating. But the interesting thing about the applications that I tried was in some instances you could communicate with fellow VR watchers down to the point where it was rendered as avatars watching the game together. First of all, First of all, I love that you are super fun enough to have seen all these different kinds of broadcast. Um, this is one of my favorites. What you're what you're describing, it's and we'll

do it again this season on. We produce games in virtual reality every week with next company called Next VR. We also, together with Turner, produced games with Intel in virtual reality, and they each bring a kind of a different experience to the table, very immersive and conveying that that what's happening inside the arena is one of the other pillars of innovation for us. You know, the the

NBA experience is an immersive one. Right before there was ever an immersive UH media company, we were creating immersive media experiences in arena for those who could who could get to arenas. But you've got fans all over the world for with the NBA um WE broadcasts and over two hundred countries who may never have the opportunity for logistical reasons to go experience that unadulterated in arena experience. So virtual reality has I think tremendous promise to deliver

more of that sensory information. But the more traditional to even call it traditional and VR is funny, but the more traditional VR broadcasts have felt more isolating. So we brought the next VR produced immersive experience to something called Oculus Venues. Oculus is one of the pre eminent VR companies in space, owned by own by Facebook and with venues, as you said, you you get to sit in a in a virtual arena surrounded by avatars and it'll um

using the Facebook social graph. It'll sit you near your friends if they're watching it at the same time, and you can move around. You can you know, move between seats, and you can look at each other, and you can talk to each other, and you can gesticulate and um, you don't it doesn't look like you're sitting next to your friend, but emotionally it feels like you're sitting next to your friend. I think that's the important thing. So now we get to have the immersive experience being an arena.

We're not a hundred percent of the way there. I don't even know we're sixty percent of the way there, but we're making great progress on that and have that social experience of being in the arena with your friends. So um the early days, I think, but it's a really compelling experience today and people are more and more people are trying it and enjoying it, and I think the future of the NBA broadcast will include something like this.

That's how so I mean when you say meaning back on the traditional TV version, that it will have something like that, or that VR becomes the trade I don't. I don't know that VR becomes the traditional, uh, the traditional way to view, but I think it'll be a really important way to view in the future. I will make this prediction, which is in the long term, I definitely could see a time when when VR displays his

TV as the way to experience sports. Because another big takeaway for me watching the NBA and VR was even though the resolution is when I was watching on Oculus, it's not good. It's not going to be there for a while. When you're used to watching HD on. Nevertheless, the angles and the three dimensionality of it, it blew my mind and it's why I will not gonna watch.

I mean, not every game is available in VR, but tim time to time I do make a point of watching it just because, even though it's not quite achieved its potential, it's far along enough where I'm kind of captive. I I look, I completely agree, and I'm a I'm a huge believer and a huge fan of immersive media. I only hesitate to say that it will be the traditional way to watch because I think that that optionality we were talking about earlier is going to be even

more important in the future. And it may be that you know, you don't want to necessarily immerse yourself, even if you can access your phone in VR, or your or your apps and VR, even if you can access your friends. It maybe that you just don't want to put a whole headset on wherever you are. You might be, uh, you know, you might be in your living room with your family and you want to just put it on a big screen. You might you might be walking around

and want to have it on your mobile phone. I think in the future, um, the broadcast will be incredibly flexible and uh, you'll just have a variety of ways to watch it from totally immersed, too much less immersed but very mobile. Well, then there's a we've talked about VR. Then there's a R or mixed reality or spatial computing one at a time. My god, well, I was very curious. Uh. I think it was about a year ago when NBA started talking about Magic Leap in the partnership there. I've

not tried that. What can we expect from that? How far along is that? Either? Well, the technology that magically has is incredible, um, and I recommend you give it a shot. But for those who haven't tried it, you put a headset on it's it's it's lighter and less intrusive than a full VR headset, and you still see the real world outside of the glasses. It's like putting

on a pair of goggles. Um. But it using some pretty pretty advanced technology, allows you to see digital information, digital assets in the real world that aren't really there. So what it means for basketball is that as it is, there's a lot of things. Um, I think look at the the ultimate version of that is something like virtual reality, where part of the room that you're in is replaced

within immersive experience of watching the game. It might be that um, the living room wall across from the couch disappears and is replaced with courtside at the garden. UM Another a little bit further, a little bit you know, far out version UM is the tabletop experience of watching

the game. So imagine you're sitting on that caution in your living room and on top of your coffee table is a kind of a miniature arena that you're looking into like you're a giant floating floating above it, like a hologram exactly like you like you see in Star Wars.

And this is possible not only with the kind of technology that Magically was creating, but with a capture technology called volumetric capture h This is where there's a variety of ways to do it, but basically, there are camera sensors position around the arena and they capture the volume

of the arena. They calculate where each pixel is in three dimensional space, and and and they capture the volume of the arena so that you can move a imagine a virtual camera or a virtual perspective anywhere in that volume and watch from anywhere. That means you could using VR, you could attach a virtual camera to your favorite players eyes. You said you're a Clippers fan, right, So imagine watching

the game play out from Kauai's point of view. Um or you can do as I said and you can move back and you can watch it like a hologram on a table. Is advanced and sci fi, as this technology sounds, uh, it's actually something that we're already experimenting with.

Intel has a version of this technology that is designed specifically for arenas that we've begun installing in some of the NBA arenas, and we can try we can do this experience what we're talking about on a non live basis, Uh, not yet at the super high definition resolution that we would need, but we can see the path toward when this is live and when this is HD. So that's kind of where mixed reality, spatial reality, spatial computing things

like magically I think end up going. But in the meantime, it's the there's a lot of really cool things you can do with it. With our current app, you can put virtual screens as big as you want on any of the walls in your room, multiple screens if you like and watch the game or highlights UM play out there with three dimensional UH stats visualizations jumping out at you. And one of the cool things that we've we've played with is a sort of a CG representation of a

player on the coffee table. UH. And in this case last season it was it was Lebron uh just running down the court and dunking the ball. But it was like, this is what this is what the future of highlights might look like. They'll be spatial and you'll be able to look around them, UM as though they were a

hologram in the room with you. And how cool would it be if it would also be life size, because I think that could be something where have the ability to not just see them in three dimensions, but to see them at their actual height. Is that that's even contemplated. It just kind of occurred to me. Now it's like, well, maybe why not. It's a great it's a great use case, especially because our players are so physically imposing and impressive. And it turns out it's actually no more difficult to

do it large than it is to do it small. UM. You don't with the field of view of the current systems, you wouldn't be able to take the full player in from a close distance. You'd have to kind of start us at at his feet and go up and look towards the ceiling to see his head um. But that field of view is something that's going to improve as well.

And if you step back and you wanted to see a life size player a little bit across the room, that that fit in the field of view, you can absolutely do that and it's no more difficult than than capturing them at a at a smaller scale, well a nearer term a R application. I had the pleasure because

I'm a Clipper fan of witnessing this past season. I don't know if you saw the Clippers court vision with the company called Second Spectrum, right, I mean, just to give people an idea, that's where you're watching the usual game, perhaps on your phone, and there's an a R layer of graphics and stats that are pretty seamless, pretty real time in terms of data coming in. Is that something

we're going to see more of around the league? Yeah, So that's that's something that the Clippers did in partnership with a company called Seconds Spectrum, and they are one of the um stats providers or information gatherers for the league, and they use UM technology that tracks the players on the court. And there are lots of different ways that you can use it. UM. We use it in some ways to UM to understand player performance and things like that, but it can be used for consumer purposes to a

like like the one that you described. It's Uh, I think it's really really neat. I think it's especially cool UM for v O D just to understand a play in a different way, to to rewatch a play and see for example, UM one of the one of the use cases that they have is it shows the percentage likelihood of any given player from any given part of the court to make a basket when they have the ball. And uh, it's just a neat kind of like because you understand the decisions that the players make as they're

making them from a different point of view. You understand because they're making I think some of those calculations in their head, Am I am I likely to hit the shot from this point of view defended by this player. UM. So you can kind of make those you can see that in in real time with these overlays, and UH so absolutely we're going to continue to experimental graphical overlays. We'll see a lot more of that this season. It's

one of the neat things too. I think about the way we're structured as a league that our our teams can be laboratories for experimentation, likeli Clippers, who've been really experimental in this area, and if something works, we can then take that and try to apply it across the league. It's just an example of innovation working from from teams

back to the league. Is on the flip side, though, is there ever tension there where you know, a team can sort of take ownership of something in a way that the league can't, or they do their own thing. You know, I can't think of an example where, um, a team took ownership of something and and it prevented us from doing anything that we wanted to do. Um,

So I think it's usually something that's positive. There are, you know, some some limits on what the teams can do relatives to what the league can do, but they're pretty well delineated and so it doesn't it doesn't result in too much tension that often. What what I find is the most sort of team centric experience across all the different platforms that we're talking about is social media. I mean, it's so interesting to me following a number of teams on social media how they all have this

very built out video rich three sixty five um experience. Um. Does the NBA itself feel like it has its own social identity or is it really about the teams and the players doing their own thing? You know. One of the unique things about a sports league within as compared to other entertainment, is the extent to which it's an ecosystem that is bigger than anyone company, including bigger than

the NBA itself as a company. UM. It goes to the thirty teams, but it goes to the you know, four hundred plus players, It goes to our many dozens of partners around the world, and uh many hundreds of companies that create and innovate content around NBA that we don't necessarily have a direct contractual relationship, and then beyond that to the thousands and millions of fans who are

creating and sharing content around the world. UM. By and large, that makes us a much more i think robust business and a more a more valuable ecosystem for any one of us to be a part of. So it's generally it's great, but we have to UM understand where we can fit into that because we're not only are we competing with other entertainment, but in a sense, we're competing with other companies who are creating NBA basketball content just

like we are. It's important, therefore, to have an identity, and I think we've been successful in defining and defining what that is. I think we're still honing that to some extent, but we've been very successful on social media. The n b a UM official accounts that we control are some of the top accounts on on every social platform UM, and our our teams and players have been Our players, for example, are some of the top individual accounts, and our teams are some of the top accounts as well.

So it hasn't because their success has not prevented us from being successful. I think in many ways it's contributed. We've all contributed to each other's success by by creating a bigger ecosystem. But thinking about our identity in the social space, it's like any business. You think about it in terms of competitive advantage. What are the things that

we can do better than others can do? UM Immediately you go to that we are the official, we have the official voice, and in some in some context it's really important and really valuable, and in gambling, for example, having the official stats is extremely valuable. We're also probably the most comprehensive because we have we're the only ones who have the vault that has all NBA content UH

within it. And I think maybe most importantly in one that we leverage a lot in in the social space is that we can be the most real time and have the most access so um, you know, we're we're all over the building when it comes to a live game in arena, and we can make our fans who follow us on social media feel like they have an all access credential, so that that becomes that kind of real time access um and those other things become the kind of uh foundation of our identity and social and

it's worked out really well for us. And also in terms of how you as the NBA relate to social it does seem in contrast to some other leagues. We won't mention that may have been a little too controlling, that you guys have just sort of let the player, let fans players whoever have free reign with video out there, whether it's gifts or whatnot. You know, a year or two into that has that worked, there have been pitfalls

by giving perhaps too much freedom. Well, it's a it's a conscientious decision and one that we made really from the beginning of social media. So it goes back. I think we've embraced it more fully even and and gone beyond permitting and actually gone to empowering fans to create content. But from the beginning of social of our presence on

social media, we made a decision. This is a decision that that Adam made and his role at the time as head of NBA Entertainment to embrace uh fans creating content. I mean, the you know, from his point of view is why would we prevent people from creating free, free marketing content, right? Um, you know, and if it's something, if they can create content that it becomes a substitute for something that we could do, then we need to be looking for other things that we could do that

others can't substitute. Um. But I think it goes even even more fundamentally to this idea of of an ecosystem where the more participants in the ecosystem. It's really it's like network theory, right, every additional note that you have in the network, and the stronger the connections between the nodes, the more valuable the note is for every participant in

that network. So we're like a social network in that way, and um it, as long as we can figure out ways to contribute value that's unique and extract value at the same time than having a bigger, more robust, more valuable network by having by allowing fans and others to participate directly by creating content is just a win win

for everybody. Speaking of social networks and curious about the league's relationship with the Facebook snapchats of the world, I would imagine the TikTok deal must be in the thing we've We've got one already. Cool. Well, but you know, there's always been somewhat of a tension there in terms of leverage um attention there in terms of how am

I making money? I know the platforms are, do you guys have some sort of overall philosophy as you choose you know, how you might participate saying, you know, video for Facebook Watch or perhaps their their new subscription video platform. I you know, I wouldn't describe it as attention and I would say that because we've been early with the social media platforms and early UM and we continue to

be early. So when when musically, when tiknok was musically and that was new, we were you know, we were there and we were I think the number one brand there. I think we maybe still still are the number one brand UM because we were early and because we evolved our presence on social media together with the evolution of the social media companies. I think we've got really great, strong relationships and we've seen that they are look that it's it's in their interest to figure out how all

of this makes money for them. In the meantime, it's great for our fans, it's great for the reasons we talked about and creating a more valuable ecosystem, and it's great for marketing and UM. We it seems like every year they're figuring out better and better ways to make that turn that that value into monetary value that we

can participate in. So, you know, I think by being early and being uh close partners with them, we've been able to take that journey with them, and I think we're all confident that we're trying to get to the same place which is just great experiences for their users and our fans, and ways to turn that into business opportunities for us. Well. Speaking of business opportunities, one last question, what maybe the biggest opportunity of all you mentioned earlier?

Gambling supports legalization. Legalization of gambling is slowly starting to become like maybe in a dozen or so states now legal. I see this as a tsunami that is eventually going to hit fifty states, and I think it's already somewhat active internationally. Uh, that's got to be a game changer for the NBA digital strategy. I would imagine, Well, look,

I think it's um. It's hard to predict the timing of it, and and it may roll out slowly enough where it's it's really big before we realize that it's really big, because we're in a pot of boiling water, right, UM. But it's certainly um could be really impactful for UM the way people engage with our content on on digital and the way that people watch our live games. So

it's something that we watch really closely. I think it's actually a really good example of what I think of as kind of twin pillars of of of Adam's focus as he's led the NBA over the last last six years or so, five or five or six years, and and those are innovation, which where where we started with this conversation, and integrity, which is making sure that um we are shepherd ng responsibly shepherding the sport and that everybody feels like there's transparency around the rules and that

the competition is fair. That's just been a really really strong theme throughout his his tenure as commissioner. And these both of these issues come up in this space with with gambling, and I think that's the balance that we've been trying to strike. We want to embrace innovation in this space, but we also want to make sure that at all times we've protected we've protected the integrity of

the game. That's probably gonna be our role. Our role, if we're gonna have a direct role in this as this rolls out, is to be the shepherds of the integrity of it um as innovation takes place. But I think that the benefits that we end up seeing as there's just gonna be more reasons for people to watch games more ways and for them to engage with our content, well, it'll be just one of the many fronts. I'll be

watching as the new season on folds. Looking forward to all the experimentation you're doing, and thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks for being a fanom This has been another episode of Strictly Business. Tune in next week for another helping a scintillating conversation with media movers and shakers, and please make sure you subscribe to the podcast to hear future episodes. Also leave a review in Apple Podcast let us know how we're doing. M