APRIL 20209From one-sided viewing, fans are now actively engaging with content through fantasy gaming, merchandise, pop-culture and movie-integration and much morekeep fans at the core of all our endeavors, especially when it comes to using innovations that help us stay ahead of the trends in a rapidly-changing media and entertainment landscape globally.To give you a perspective, in 2017, Nike and the NBA unveiled the Nike NBA Connected Jersey, the first NBA jersey that gives the wearer an all-access pass into the world of their favorite team and players. Each jer-sey has an embedded NFC (near field communication) chip that will launch real-time team and player content such as pregame arrival footage, highlight packages and top players' favorite music playlists ­ all on the jersey owner's mobile device.It is not only the league but also the governors who strongly advocate innovation in fan engagement. In 2015, Sacramento Kings, the NBA team owned by Indian-or-igin tech visionary Vivek Ranadive, got fans in India to experience the in-arena excitement in real time through virtual reality (VR). So much is their belief in the power of technology that they have one-of-a-kind, dual-mode mobile app, Sacramento Kings + Golden 1 Center app, which enables fans to discover the fastest route to the arena, figure out which entrance door's line is moving the quickest, and even give fans the opportunity to up-grade their seats ­ all before they even enter the doors.For the NBA, India is one of the top priority mar-kets outside of US. On linear platform, over 300 games are broadcast live on Sony Pictures Sports Network channels every season. On digital, we are streaming on SonyLIV and on our direct-to-consumer platform NBA League Pass, which offers fans access to all Games with live stats and real-time analysis through the sea-son across multiple mediums. Fans can also play fantasy gaming on Dream11, our official fantasy gaming partners in India and buy our official merchandise on nbastore.in on Myntra.We also have been investing in the grassroots de-velopment and have engaged with over 10 million youth across 13,000 schools through our Reliance Foundation Jr. NBA Program since its launch in 2013. The idea was to have more youth bounce the ball and make basket-ball an important part of the lifestyle and sporting hab-its. A level above is The NBA Academy India where we have 24 prospects from across India on 100 per cent scholarships. Year on year, we select the talent from the ACG-NBA Jump program, India's first national basketball scouting program. It hasn't been an overnight process that has led to growing interest in the game.Keeping in mind the growing fan-base, we brought the entire NBA experience to India on Oct. 4 & 5 2019. We hosted two preseason games between the Sacramento Kings and the Indiana Pacers at the Dome, NSCI, Mum-bai to a house-full arena. The first-ever NBA game in In-dia on Oct. 4 was played in front of 3,000 boys and girls from more than 70 schools under the Reliance Founda-tion Jr. NBA program. Adding a dash of innovation, for the first time ever in India for any sports event, fans who registered to buy tickets for the games, got access to the court layout and pricing through an interactive 3D lay-out of the venue, giving them a 360-degree view.In 2020, we launched the league's first Dribble-a-thon in India, a basketball challenge event featuring participants ages six and above dribbling a basketball across a one kilometer course. The event tipped off Feb-ruary 29 at Sports Complex, Sector 7, Chandigarh, and will travel to multiple cities across India over the next few months. With the objective to grow the league's fan base in India, the NBA's all new marketing campaign for the 2019-2020 season #EkGameChallenge was launched through a TVC in March first week. It aims to recruit new fans through the existing fan community who serve as the league's biggest evangelist. The campaign chal-lenges audiences to sample at least one NBA game on SONY TEN1 & NBA League Pass and promises that they will keep coming back for more. Today, we are at an inflection point where we can enable a sports fan to consume and engage with basket-ball in a manner never done. By replicating best prac-tices that have made the NBA one of the most valuable leagues in the world, we believe that a league is the step-ping stone in creating an economic value proposition for India, the basketball stakeholders and all fans across the country.The bottom line is that for a fan, diverse range of content and its ability to interact with them is the key. Building relations with these fans and embrace their submissions will be key to any and all sports brands' sur-vival in India.
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