The NBA continues to explore innovative ways to bring its fans closer to the game and its talented players. In the past year, no activation achieved that goal quite like a series of league-hosted Facebook Live streams during the 2014 NBA Finals. For the first time ever, fans had the opportunity to engage some of the NBA's biggest stars through the social network's native streaming video feature. The NBA secured talent, including LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Tony Parker, to engage in live Q & A sessions with fans during the players' NBA Finals media availability. The NBA crowd-sourced fan questions across Facebook and Instagram, and those questions were then served up directly to the players. The NBA talent loved the unfiltered, direct level of interaction with their biggest fans, and they responded by opening up in an endearing, genuine way and shouting out the specific fans who asked questions. On a tangible level, the activation helped deliver a record amount of Facebook interactions and impressions (over 70 million fans reached for the Facebook Live posts alone) for the NBA Finals period.
We believe this entry deserves to win because it was a pioneering use of Facebook's live streaming, native video feature that engaged fans directly during the apex point of our season. For the first time ever on the NBA's social media assets, fans were given a virtual media credential and could ask the likes of LeBron James what it takes to mentally prepare for an NBA Finals game. They could then watch him answer in a live setting within Facebook! That kind of access and engagement was truly unique and unrivaled for a tentpole sports event like the NBA Finals. And the level of fan engagement only further validated the decision to implement the activation. The NBA set record totals for number of fans reached on Facebook during The Finals, and saw a 130% year-over-year increase in fan actions on Facebook (and a 65% YOY increase in fan comments) for the championship round period.
