When players like LeBron James, Shaq O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and others among a huge list get on the basketball court and score point after point,
it indeed becomes too good to resist for viewers. Whenever they slam a dunk in the basket or shoot a three pointer at the buzzer, the crowd at the court definitely screams, cheers and gets on its feet.
But they are not the only ones watching the game. A far greater number of people are following each moment of the game either on television or through the internet and even they are as much excited as the people watching it live in the stadium. So it is but natural that the television viewership and online traffic of NBA is attaining higher levels with every passing moment. From every media platform, all those good things are being showered on NBA this season; their viewership ratings are certainly touching a record high!
Television Ratings for NBA
The National Basketball Association had recently announced that the television viewership had increased by 13 percent in the 2010-2011 season as compared to the last season and is estimated to be 103 million. The three networks that broadcast NBA games regularly are enjoying every bit of this surge in ratings with double-digit viewership growths individually. TNT, operated by Time Warner, has had an increase of 42 percent in television viewers. Not much behind TNT, Walt Disney’s channel ABC has witnessed a growth of 38 percent. ESPN, again from Disney, is said to have leaped by 28 percent in terms of NBA viewership figures. If all these numbers are carefully analyzed just by a mere observation, one fact stands clear: NBA is simply drawing in more money! And those people such as LeBron James, Carmelo Antony and Kobe Bryant are showing that they have the Midas touch in them. Everything that they do is turning into gold for broadcasting companies and eventually is increasing the brand value of NBA. NBA also announced that NBA TV, which is its cable arm, received a viewership of around 8.6 million users in this season.
Internet Traffic for NBA
A whopping 140 percent increase against the last year has led to 1.94 billion NBA videos being watched on the internet this year. Similar to it, the page views of NBA have gone up to 5.9 billion this season, a rise of 35 percent. With the boom of social media marketing, the presence of NBA in the social media has also gained a lot of momentum. The Facebook and Twitter pages of NBA players, teams and leagues gathered a consolidated fan following of more than 100 million which rose from 63 million, the number at the beginning of this season. This portrays a rise of around 60 percent in a span of just few months!
NBA Merchandise Sales
With such huge numbers of television viewers and online visitors, the sale of NBA merchandise was bound to increase. Star players in the league played a vital part in this area as their fan following boosted the sale of jerseys and shorts quite significantly. The global jump in the sales numbers was 20 percent and the sales figure at the NBA’s own website increased by 60 percent.
So, if a quick understanding of all these numbers is laid, the outcome definitely gives NBA an even higher arena in the future to increase in popularity, viewership, online traffic and money. At the moment, everything looks to be just great and most probably it will stay longer!
