Where can I find my favorite NBA team’s next game as more media outlets pick up professional basketball? The league wants to help.
With just days to go before the start of its next season, the NBA is launching a new effort that will help fans find the game they want to watch, including local games as well as national games available on Disney’s ESPN and ABC; NBCUniversal’s NBC and Peacock; and Amazon’s Prime Video.
“We are really focused on making sure fans know where to find our games,” says Sara Zuckert, an NBA senior vice president who oversees the league’s mobile app. “We recognize this season for them has two great new media partners, but that may leave fans not necessarily knowing where our games are.”
The NBA launches new “Tap to Watch” technology as its games move to streaming platforms in bulk, thanks to new deals struck with NBCU and Amazon, which will showcase a wide range of games previously allocated to Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney. Fans using the NBA App, NBA.com and team apps and websites will be shown how to access game telecasts not only through local and national rightsholders, but digital platforms including Google, Meta, X, Snap, Reddit, Roku and Dapper Labs.
“The live game is the core of the NBA fan experience,” says Zuckert, who describes making access easier to digital audiences as “essential.” The technology will take fans to the platform showing a game, and if t they are not subscribers, help them through that process.
The NBA isn’t the only sports entity interested in such stuff. ESPN in August of last year tried to prove its utility to all fans by unveiling a “Where to Watch” search feature in its mobile app and website that would do something every sports aficionado has craved since Amazon nabbed rights to stream portions of the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” in 2017: help die-hards increasingly frustrated in their efforts to find their favorite teams as sports began to stream across new broadband giants, league-owned outlets and regional venues.
I think that’s going to be a real priority for all of us is just making sure that people know where to go. You’re going to have — there’s 40 percent more national games than last year, but people have to know where to get them,” said Tim Corrigan, senior vice president of sports production at Disney’s ESPN, in a conference with journalists earlier this week. “That’s going to be a big responsibility on all three of the partners, as well as the league to beat that drum and make sure people know people know where to go to get this because the additional over the air on ABC and NBC is a big deal, and is going to be more available and some of the streaming are going to be things that really need to be — we need to drive folks and let them know where to go.”
Such efforts highlight the growing importance of tracking sports as rights deals become increasingly spread out among different venues. With sports standing as the only TV format that seems able to attract the large, simultaneous audiences that advertisers and distributors crave, the fees to keep them on air have gone from eye-popping to exorbitant. With prices so high, media companies are narrowing their packages, leaving some big leagues like the NBA spread across more networks and streamers. Add a shifting landscape for local rights into the mix and it’s little wonder sports fans are often stymied in their efforts to quickly find the right game at the right time.