“This is why we play” is assisting the NBA in attracting all types of fans. The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a worldwide sports entertainment business league. The NBA is a league that is considered to have the best basketball players in the world. While the business of the NBA produces a lot of revenue; the combination of these two gives the NBA exposure all throughout the world. However, the NBA always finds ways to improve their league and appeal to people worldwide. This year the campaign they launched is "This is why we play". This campaign is something the NBA plans to use for the next few years to come. In recent years, the campaigns launched were only for that particular basketball season, but this year they feel like they found a solid campaign that can be used for multiple years. They have done a great job with their commercials and advertisements with this campaign so far. The NBA knows there are people out in the world that can be reached and converted into fans, so to achieve that goal they launched the campaign “This is why we play” to attract more general fans.

The NBA launched three spots of commercials for their campaign “This is why we play.” The first commercial is considered the “Anthem” commercial which really does a great a job appealing to all ethnicities, genders, age groups, and abilities. The NBA's goal is to get more general fans so they included a wide variety of people throughout the commercial. This commercial included people in China, ordinary people playing at the local YMCA, and also included female referees and coaches. It highlighted a lot of different people throughout the world. The second commercial is considered the “Anticipation” commercial. This commercial is geared more towards fans and NBA players preparing for the start of the basketball season. It is not as diverse as the first commercial, but it does present a lot of excitement and anticipation for the NBA season. The last of the three spot commercials is the “Joy” commercial. This commercial shows fans enjoying basketball now that it is in full effect.

I believe the NBA took more of an angle of showing how many platforms there is to watch NBA games. It shows different fans watching the games in different locations. Fans were watching games from their cellphones, iPads, and televisions. They watched these games at work, on the bus, and even on the move. This shows fans that are constantly on the move or do not really have the time to sit and watch the games that they can still watch the games while they are going about their daily activities.

The NBA has done a great job of touching different people all throughout the world with this campaign. They have a slogan that is effective and can be useful for multiple years, and their goals of gaining more general fans will be achieved. These commercials were not geared towards just one demographic of people, but targeted a diverse population. One thing that can be improved is showing more of the NBA players in the commercials. It could help if they showed some more up and coming stars in the league to appeal to some of those player’s fans.

Written by Marcus Johnson
General Editor: Macy Marin 

References

http://www.sbrnet.com.ezproxy.samford.edu/research.aspx?subRID=716

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2015/10/12/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/NBA-marketing.aspx

http://www.marketingdirecto.com/actualidad/anunciantes/jugamos-la-emotiva-campana-la-la-nba-anuncia-regreso/

http://www.foxsports.com/nba/video?vid=571702851534

http://www.nba.com/video/channels/nba_tv/2015/10/14/this-is-why-we-play-60.nba/