Exclusive: Customised tech is the future in sport says NBA commissioner Adam Silver

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Last month, I found an opportunity to head to Abu Dhabi and watch the season-opening friendlies at the National Basketball Association (NBA). It was a first. So, I’ll begin with the first thing about the world’s biggest league that struck me when I entered the arena.

Here I was, an Indian media professional sitting 10 rows away from the court in the heart of Abu Dhabi, hosting an all-American league game, where the biggest star of the day was a Slovenian (Luka Dončić).

In the crowd was Brazilian football star Ronaldo Nazario, cheering the teams; and right in front of me was a Chinese social media influencer and his girlfriend, busy documenting every single second of action out there.

An American tournament in a Gulf state, a European star, a South American fan, a Chinese influencer, an Indian journalist – if this alone doesn’t epitomise the idea of a global league, I don’t know what does.

Innovation is key

Adam Silver is the boss of this global presentation. Just before the first match between the Dallas Mavericks and the Minnesota Timberwolves, I had the opportunity to meet the NBA commissioner.

Technology and innovation remained the crux of the conversation.
Silver, 61, has been heading the NBA for nine years now and the very fact that the league happens to be the world’s No. 1 sports property doesn’t allow him any rest whatsoever.

Overused as the line might be that ‘with great power comes great responsibility’, Silver knows better than most how important it is to keep evolving and innovating while at the top.

“I think it's critically important that we continue to innovate. I mean, the one thing we've learned from our many years at the league is that, well as we may be doing at any given time, and I think this is true for all businesses, competition comes from everywhere. There are also things around us that are unpredictable. So, it's the reason why we, as the league, work as hard as we do, constantly thinking about new opportunities -- whether it's the rule changes we've made this season, or a second coaches’ challenge or a new approach to flopping or focus on players.

“It's the advent, two seasons ago, of a play-in tournament or an in-season tournament, something new this year. I see all of that as a form of innovation. And to me, you can never stop innovating,” says Silver.

The future is exciting

The man is a great fan of technology and doesn’t mind embracing the tiniest of transition in this space. In fact, “customisation of technology is key,” he says. “The direction media is going in, it's becoming much more personalised and customised”.

He’s not pointing at things from a present-day perspective but a futuristic one. As of today, the NBA may be providing broadcast feeds to be distributed in almost 215 countries and territories around the world with different audio tracks, the benefits of local languages, etc., but as Silver says, “that’s about the only differences people will currently see”.

Personlisation is the way forward

It’s the future that he’s excited about. Here’s quoting Silver verbatim: “In the future, what will come in terms of personalisation is if you want to focus on a particular player, maybe because that player has a connection to the country or to you, you'll have a menu to choose from different languages in which you can hear the game.

There'll be a social media aspect, the community that you can be part of, that you can select to be part of that game.

“Maybe it's people who share a connection to that team or fellow fans of that team or people from all the same region or people who are interested in certain types of play or certain levels of expertise. I think on top of that, you know, you're going to get different graphics, different information that is of interest to you as you're watching the game.

“Especially in the next few years, I think we're going to see dramatic changes in how these games are produced in ways that are going to create much more engagement for fans. I mean, again, if maybe a young person wants a presentation that looks more like a video game or somebody who's a more traditional fan wants to see the game presented in a more established fashion.

“I just think that's the way media is going and, and it's particularly exciting to all of us because, as you mentioned, there's so much happening whether in artificial intelligence, in the marketplace around new forms of streaming and digital technology. I think live sports will be the beneficiary.”

New-age challenges

Every minute of listening to the man is a lesson in grasping what the world’s most successful sports administrators are perhaps looking at right now.

The competition is intense, especially in a world driven by digitisation. Take the case of India and a popular platform like the YouTube where the maker of a video that entails a cat running after a mouse has perhaps more clicks and views than Sachin Tendulkar’s backfoot punch, the launch of Chandrayaan 2, Shah Rukh Khan romancing an actress or even Messi dribbling past a flurry of defenders.

There’s no telling what the consumer finds interesting and given the fact that algorithms are beginning to drive our viewing preferences, staying attuned with technology is clearly a necessity and a learning curve, both.

“And it's all right there on their phone, literally unlimited number of options to entertain themselves. So, we always have to be putting our best foot forward and competing for that fan's attention and taking nothing for granted,” says Silver.

Part of the ideas that compel you to innovate, the commissioner adds, comes from constantly talking to our fans and learning from them in terms of their changing interests, and also to our players and teams.

“One of the benefits even for us being here with our teams is that just talking directly to our players, particularly our young players, and saying, ‘how do you see the game’, ‘what are people, your friends interested in and when they turn on a game’, ‘what do they want to see?’

“So, all of that's very necessary and as powerful as this brand is and as strong as the game of basketball is. As I said, we can never take anything for granted because, the other side of the coin of all this digital technology is people have unlimited options available to them at any time”.

That’s a powerful statement from the man. Much as the brand is powerful, and perhaps as strong as the game itself is, nothing can ever be taken for granted.

It is perhaps this very reason Silver has always remained enthusiastic about something as genuinely simple as pushing an NBA match and trivia highlights on social media shorts and reels.

While one may think it has turned out to be quite a revenue generator for the NBA, the fact is, the move has been more about marketing the sport to young, modern-day fans, than earning revenues from.

“For us, the distribution of highlights on social media is less about revenue generation. It's more about marketing. I think it's more about this notion that people who may not know the game well or maybe casual fans become enticed to watch live games by virtue of the highlights they see on social media,” says Silver.