ABOUT THIS ENTRY
The NBA YouTube channel continues to grow - surpassing 18 million followers and 10 billion lifetime views. This submission details the growth of the NBA's presence on YouTube during the submission timeframe.
How does this represent “Excellence in Engagement”?
The NBA YouTube channel’s exponential growth to 10 billion lifetime channel views, with 21% of those views generated during the submission timeframe is a testament to the quality, speed and consistency of content that the NBA creates for and publishes to the @NBA YouTube channel. We are reaching and engaging the global fans of the NBA, and our optimization of YouTube truly creates consumption at the highest level - resulting in 199 million watch hours from fans around the world during the submission timeframe. With the engagement success on the @NBA YouTube channel, and the goal of optimizing for new trends in content consumption between longform and shortform content, the NBA continues to focus on quickly developing strategies to deploy around these trends to stay competitive on YouTube.
Objective: Since launching the channel in 2005, the NBA’s primary objective on YouTube has been to reach and engage fans across the world. The consistency and commitment to that mission, along with the attention to evolving data trends, has helped the NBA build one of the largest communities on the platform. During the submission timeframe, the compound effects of years of optimization continued in record-setting engagement and reach. In 2021, the NBA YouTube channel eclipsed 1.94 billion views - the most in a calendar year for the league. Additionally, as of February 2022, the channel exceeded 10 billion total views and surpassed 18 subscribers - a testament to the commitment of engaging the global fan and audience.
Strategy & Execution: We are constantly focused on optimizing the NBA YouTube channel and have taken a strategic approach to increasing longform daily, creating season-long content franchises, unlocking more of the NBA vault in celebration of the 75th Anniversary Season and engaging fans through on-platform tools such as YouTube Shorts and Community.
Subscribers of the NBA YouTube channel have access to full game highlights after the conclusion of every game. From various in-arena angles, mic’d up access and behind-the-scenes access vertical content in YouTube Shorts, every top moment in the NBA is available for fans.One example to highlight is how fans can consume notable finishes to games in a variety of ways on the @NBA channel, including by watching the Full Game Highlight recaps, Fantastic Finish videos of the final unedited minutes of the game and signature play down the stretch in bit-sized form through YouTube Shorts.
And, in the Community section, we are sharing the NBA’s top storylines, videos to watch and engaging our community via questions and polls.
Results: With the goal of engaging our current YouTube audience, acquiring new subscribers and improving watch hours and retention on the platform, the channel saw increases across the board in views, subscriber growth and watch time during the submission timeframe.
- Video Views up 13.1% YoY
- Subscriber Growth up 12.5% YoY
- Watch Hours up 10% YoY
These numbers represent an increase over the year prior which, at the time, was the NBA’s best performing year ever on YouTube.
The NBA also became the first pro sports league account to surpass 18M followers on YouTube.
Production
The Players’ Tribune, Barbie, Mattel
Credits
Dan Duquette
Director, Social Media
The Players' Tribune
Diana Roberts
VP, Digital Content
The Players' Tribune
Featured Athletes
Sky Brown
Madison de Rozario
Aly Raisman
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