LAS VEGAS — Over the past several decades, technology has changed the way NBA fans listen and watch games, from radios to televisions and now with the internet. So how will new tech products and innovations further affect the viewing experience?
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver provided a glimpse into the league’s vision for the future on Thursday at CES in Las Vegas. Silver, speaking on a panel with NCAA President Mark Emmert, former NBA star Grant Hill, and WNBA legend Sue Bird at Turner Sports’ Sports Business Innovation event, was asked by TNT’s Ernie Johnson how fans will watch games in five years.
The 54-year-old, who became commissioner in 2014 after replacing longtime leader David Stern, said he thinks it will become easier to watch games — or parts of games — on mobile devices. He said it’s currently “clumsy and difficult,” but noted that fans might soon have more viewing options and easier ways to access streams.
For example, say a fan was a close follower of Bird, and an app like Twitter knew this and was able to notify the fan about a game going on where Bird was about to set a personal record. Alerts like these are certainly present today, but perhaps not as intelligent and contextual as they might become in the future.
Silver also said the league may get to a point where it will let a fan pay to access a stream for a short amount of time.
“Maybe someone wants to watch the last five minutes and we can set a price for that, as opposed to what they would pay for two hours,” he said. ” I think you can take the same great content and make it that much more available to people who want it.”
And what about fans at the game itself? Johnson noted how people like Dallas Mavericks owner and tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban don’t want fans looking at their smartphones while watching games in-person.
“I learned very quickly that anytime I have somebody looking down at their phone, I lose a little bit of them,” Cuban said at last year’s Sports Business Innovation event. “We try to do everything possible to keep fans from using technology while the game is being played.”
Silver said on Thursday that as much as the league wants fans to pay attention for a game’s entirety, “it’s very unlikely to happen.”
“So the question is, if they’ll be looking at their device, how do you convince them and provide opportunities to them to be looking at content relevant to what’s happening on the floor,” the commissioner said.
One recent example of this is InPlay, a new in-game fantasy app built by the NBA and FanDuel that lets fans pick who they’ll think will play the best each quarter, and then stack up their predictions with other users.
Silver said another way to engage more fans with the smartphone is to provide easy access to live box scores with advanced statistics for how players might perform in specific scenarios.
He also talked about augmented reality, which is something Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer noted at the GeekWire Sports Tech Summit, and how that might affect the fan viewing experience.
“I think you’ll be able to look out through your phone or camera and see the court, but also see other fields of information entered on top of that,” Silver said. “And when you’re looking at the floor of an NBA arena, what will instantly pop up in an augmented way on top of reality?”
Silver said you could potentially be able to see different zones of the court, and where a particular player is most likely to score. He added that there can be more done to promote communication between fans watching games, whether it be related to a fantasy competition or something else.
“It’s unrealistic to expect people to stick their phones in their pockets,” Silver said. “Therefore, let’s come up with content to allow them to be more engaged with the game they are watching.”
Johnson countered and said “that’s a lot of work” for a fan. He reminisced about the days when you could just sit back and simply watch a game with your pops on the couch.
“But it’s the same at home,” Silver responded. “How many people just sit there and watch the game? They are on multiple devices, flipping through channels, going on Twitter and Instagram.”
We’ll have more from today’s panel discussion, including thoughts from Silver, Emmert, Hill, and Bird on the power of social media for today’s athlete, later on GeekWire.
