Playback, the community live streaming sports platform, on Wednesday detailed its move out of its beta phase along with a new partnership with the NBA.
Playback users who subscribe to NBA League Pass will be able to watch those out-of-market games with the basketball content creators Playback has partnered with since its launch in August 2022. On the league side, the NBA will be able to “leverage creators and community to increase fan engagement via a more social and personalized streaming experience,” according to Playback’s announcement.
The relatively new platform combines elements of Twitch streaming and second-screen experiences like The Manningcast at the influencer level within sports. Playback has partnered with popular NBA content creators such as No Dunks (formerly The Starters on NBA TV), Nate Duncan and Danny Leroux of Dunc’d On, and Nekias Duncan and Steve Jones Jr. of The Dunker Spot.
Users create an account and are able to view the creators’ stream. That includes broadcast television and premium cable channels as well as YouTube videos and other online video content. Most often, creators will go live during games or break down footage of a previous game.
Still, it’s intriguing to see the NBA collaborate directly with such a new startup. The league has previously balked at sharing its content and brought the hammer down around copyright even as it aims to grow its digital audience.
The press release’s language around how the NBA will benefit from the partnership is vague. Clearly more awareness and engagement related to NBA League Pass will help, but will there be more?
Playback’s platform now has a spot where users can link their League Pass accounts, so the extent of this partnership should become clearer soon.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.