NBA leverages Microsoft Azure to boost fan engagement

Who: National basketball association & Azure AI

The National Basketball Association (NBA) consistently engages with fans, boasting nearly 10 billion interactions a day across its various channels. The league aims to enhance this already immense enthusiasm by launching a new direct-to-consumer platform, powered by Microsoft Azure. The platform will deliver personalized content that caters to individual fan preferences. One highlight of this endeavor is NBA CourtOptix, an experience enhancement that employs Azure AI to turn billions of data points into valuable insights about players and games. Azure’s robust capabilities have placed the NBA in a favorable position for further exciting advancements in the future.

What: Tailored, High-Volume content for fans

The NBA fan base is diverse, with varying levels of engagement. Some follow casually, tracking a favorite team’s progress, while others immerse themselves in the NBA universe, participating in fantasy leagues and diving deep into available information. Regardless of their engagement level, the NBA seeks to provide all fans with engaging, up-to-date content. On a daily basis, up to 10 billion interactions occur between fans and the NBA across all its divisions and content delivery platforms. Recognizing the increasingly digital connection with its fans, the NBA is exploring ways to provide an even richer experience through a comprehensive direct-to-consumer platform.

Before: Traditional engagement and content delivery

For many years, basketball games were primarily one-way presentations, focused on television broadcasts. However, digital media has enabled a bidirectional relationship, allowing fans to engage directly with the NBA. This interaction now continues around the clock, even when games aren’t on, via on-demand streaming, social media, and the web. The NBA seeks to better understand this interaction, customize content based on explicit and implicit fan preferences, and deliver this content within a much different experience than what the league has traditionally offered.

The process: Building a comprehensive direct-to-consumer platform

The NBA knew it needed a competent technology partner to realize its direct-to-consumer vision, which led to the partnership with Microsoft. The collaboration represents a subtle shift in mindset and strategy for the NBA, hoping that its new plans will strengthen the direct relationship with fans and increase engagement levels across the board. To achieve this, the NBA is implementing increased personalization of both content delivery and marketing efforts, leveraging Azure’s capabilities to unlock valuable insights from the vast amount of data.

After: Creating an AI-driven data analysis system – NBA CourtOptix

To enhance the fan experience, the NBA developed NBA CourtOptix, an AI-driven data analysis system that uses spatial position information about players and the ball to derive meaningful insights into the action during a game. The NBA relies on Azure to make sense of these extensive data points, with technologies like Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Machine Learning, Azure Databricks, and more being key components. With Azure, the NBA can analyze and personalize content at scale, unencumbered by past technology hurdles. Furthermore, the NBA has been able to rapidly progress with the move to Azure, completing development in weeks, furthering its commitment to provide the most personalized and best fan experience.

Conclusion: Tailored experiences for every fan and future prospects

With CourtOptix, the NBA aims to better understand how fans consume its products, what content they are interested in, and what devices they use. Having its direct-to-consumer platform built on Azure opens up tremendous possibilities for the NBA to expand its offerings in the future. The NBA is pleased with the transition to Azure, finding it easy to bring together all the necessary pieces innovatively and quickly. Looking forward, the NBA is optimistic about maintaining and improving fan engagement by providing personalized experiences and meaningful content.