The NBA produced the below video Tuesday to celebrate it reaching a significant social media milestone – 1 billion video views on its Youtube channel. That is quite the impressive achivement, but stop and consider it took 9,230 videos for the NBA to get to 1 billion views while a single song by a Korean pop artist featuring a funky looking dance is currently at 930 million views. Reflect on that while you enjoy some of the viral moments the Association has produced in the recent past…
There is a larger point to be made here. The NBA has been light years ahead of the other major sports leagues in how they've adapted to social media, especially with the sharing of videos on Youtube. Light years. While the NBA channel has 1 billion views, think of how many other NBA highlights have been viewed on Youtube outside the league's umbrella. Instead of furiously wasting time taking videos off Youtube and making it as hard as possible for you to enjoy their product, the NBA has truly embraced the social aspect of social media.
I've never understood why organizations like Major League Baseball or the NFL don't fully understand the value of a video policy that encourages embedding and sharing instead of prevents it. MLB is coming around ever so slightly making more videos embeddable on MLB.com, but the amount of ads make it painful to sit through. The same can be said for NFL.com. (Although in fairness Youtube has become exponentially more tedious with advertising in the last few months.)
The NBA's intelligence in using social media as an asset rather than a hindrance has seen them connect with a new generation of fans in a way other leagues have not. It's about time the rest of the sports world caught up with the times.
[H/T Eye on Basketball]
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