The Digital NBA

How the World's Savviest League Brings the Court to Our Couch

Steven Secular

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780252087349
  9780252045202
• eBook ISBN:
  9780252054587
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Entertainment Industry
• Index: Social Sciences

The National Basketball Association reaches a global audience via a multiplatform strategy that leverages its uncanny ability to connect fans to all things NBA. Steven Secular brings readers inside the league's global operations and traces the history of the NBA's approach to sports media from its 1980s embrace of cable through the streaming revolution of the twenty-first century. As fans around the world stream games and other league content, NBA teams incorporate foreign languages and cultures into broadcasts to boost their product's appeal to audiences in Brazil, China, and beyond. Secular's analysis reveals how the NBA continues to transform itself into a wildly successful media producer and distributor more akin to a streaming studio than the sports leagues of old even as its media partners and sponsors erase any notion of sports as a civic good.

A timely look at a dynamic media landscape, The Digital NBA shows how the games we love became content first and sport a distant second.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The International House of Hoops
• 1 The Court: Event Production, Streaming Television, and the “Glocalization” of Live Sport
• 2 The Venue: Silicon Valley, Public Finance, and the Arena as Media Platform
• 3 The Wires: Dark Fiber, Satellites, and the Global Infrastructures of Streaming Sport
• 4 The Office: The NBA’s Executive Operation as a Global Media Empire
• 5 The Couch: At-Home Sport Spectatorship and the Multiplatform Viewing Environment
• Conclusion: The House That Hoops Built
• Notes
• Index
• Series Page