Oh Those Millennials: NBA Says Don’t Go Sideways With Them
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
Photos by DANIEL CLARK
Inside an NBA production trailer outside Thomas & Mack Center, about 20 broadcast guys at the NBA Summer League were going where no NBA production crew has gone before — they were producing the first-ever basketball game feed for cell phones that consisted strictly of vertical footage.
The NBA’s Shanghai office said about 75 percent to 80 percent of fans in China prefer to watch basketball games on their cell phones in a vertical format and they don’t like to flip their phones sideways to watch the action.
So, the NBA decided to use the summer league as an experiment platform for a new vertical feed, producing a live game with only vertical footage for cell phones in China, NBA Executive Vice President for Media Operations and Technology Stephen Hellmuth told LVSportsBiz.com this week.
The vertical coverage is designed to appeal to the 21-37 year-old millennials, who like Snapchat and Instagram vertical videos and don’t like to watch their videos when their cell phones are in a horizontal position, Hellmuth said.
Here’s Hellmuth inside the production trailer explaining how the vertical feed experiment came together.
Camera operators in Thomas & Mack Center for the Utah Jazz-Miami Heat and Sacramento Kings-Memphis Grizzlies games Tuesday afternoon captured footage knowing that it was for the live vertical feed. And producer Kyle Hall and director Jeff Curtin, inside the trailer, called the shots creating the vertical presentation.
The NBA gave LVSportsBiz.com an inside look in the production trailer and several NBA staffers held cell phones showing the vertical coverage of the Heat-Jazz game.
“This the first time you’re seeing it,” Hellmuth said.
The basketball action featured close-up images of the players, yet there was also an overhead camera offering wider perspectives that fit the vertical format.
The NBA is arguably the most forward-thinking major sports league of North America’s major sports team leagues and the basketball association is constantly pushing the technological limits on delivering its game content. Hellmuth recalled when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was working as the league’s entertainment director back in the 1990s and didn’t mind kids putting together player highlight reels on YouTube using game footage like the other leagues did.
In this case, experimenting with the vertical feed is part of the NBA’s effort to deliver content and connect with a millennial generation known for their love of independence and their mobile devices. Trying to convert young adults into lifelong NBA fans is the business strategy behind trying to deliver the content in a way that the millennials will like.
Hellmuth said he wants to get feedback from fans and others who saw the vertical feed and then also evaluate the cost of potentially implementing the vertical presentation for NBA fans in the U.S.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to make it easy to stay in touch with your teams,” Hellmuth said.
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Also on the technology front, check out our story on the Skycam overhead camera that will be in use this week at Thomas & Mack Center.
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NBA agent Warren LeGarie, who is the NBA Summer League executive director and founder, is often asked about whether Las Vegas will be awarded an NBA franchise.
But LeGarie likes to say the summer league, which is hosting all 30 NBA teams for the first time in Las Vegas, is Sin City’s 31st team.
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The July 6-17 summer league, which tells NBA fans to watch tomorrow’s stars today, is doing well in attendance so far.
On Friday’s opening day, attendance hit 16,031 before a Saturday sellout of 17,500 (second sellout ever). Sunday had strong attendance of 15,122. And Monday’s attendance was 13,392.
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