@NBA YouTube’s Growth

ABOUT THIS ENTRY

2022 marked the NBA YouTube channel’s best year ever—surpassing 19 million subscribers and reaching 11 billion video views. This submission details the growth and innovation of NBA YouTube during the submission timeframe.

How does this represent “Excellence in Engagement”?

The NBA YouTube channel’s exponential growth to 11 billion lifetime channel views during the submission timeframe is a testament to the quality, speed and consistency of content that the NBA creates for and publishes to the @NBA YouTube channel. We are reaching and engaging the global fans of the NBA, and our optimization of YouTube truly creates consumption at the highest level—resulting in 232.5 million watch hours from fans around the world during the submission timeframe. With the engagement success on the @NBA YouTube channel, and the goal of optimizing for new trends in content consumption between shortform, longform and ultra-long form content, the NBA continues to focus on quickly developing strategies to deploy around these trends to stay competitive on YouTube.

Objective

Since launching the channel in 2005, the NBA’s primary objective on YouTube has been to reach and engage fans across the world. The consistency and commitment to that mission, along with the attention to evolving data trends, has helped the NBA build one of the largest sports communities on the platform. During the submission timeframe, the compound effects of years of optimization continued in record-setting engagement and reach.

In 2022, the NBA YouTube channel eclipsed 1.94 billion views—the most in a calendar year for the league. Additionally, as of February 2023, the channel exceeded 11.6 billion total views and is nearing 20 million subscribers—a testament to the commitment of engaging the global fan and audience.

Strategy & Execution

The NBA has taken a strategic approach to innovating the NBA’s YouTube channel by focusing on daily, monthly and yearly franchises to increase watch time and reach new audiences. Additionally, NBA YouTube is experimenting with new ways to engage with fans through on-platform tools such as Shorts, Story, Community and ultra-long form content (1-hour+).

From multiple in-arena angles, to mic’d up access, to behind-the-scenes access vertical video in Shorts&mash;fans are able to dive deeper and learn more about the NBA through the NBA’s YouTube channel. One example of innovation is a new “ultra-long form” video franchise, where NBA YouTube publishes 1-2 hour videos featuring must-see content from the night, in addition to monthly Classic Games. The goal is to reach new audiences across devices outside of mobile&mash;such as connected devices - and increase watch hours.

The NBA YouTube channel is leaning into optimizing the best content from around the league through short-form videos on Shorts and ultra-long form videos on the channel.

Organizations

• NBA

Credits

Andrew Yaffe
SVP, Head of Social, Digital & Original Content
NBA

Bob Carney
SVP, Social & Digital Content
NBA

Ashley Atwell
AVP, Social & Emerging Media
NBA

Justin D’Apolito
Director, Social Content
NBA

Jenny Fischer
Manager, Social Content
NBA

Adam Fedorko
AVP, Social & Digital Content Creation
NBA

Leah Berry
Senior Manager, Social & Digital Content Creation
NBA

Adam Brody
Manager, Social & Digital Content Creation
NBA

Carly Nevis
Associate Manager, Social & Digital Content Creation
NBA

Maggie Engellenner
Senior Manager, New Media Content Partnerships
NBA

Mariah Bailey
Associate Manager, New Media Content Partnerships
NBA

Kevin Esteves
Associate Vice President, Content Strategy & Business Intelligence
NBA

Iveta Karapetian
Director, Digital Content Analyst
NBA

Yisel Taveras
Associate Manager, Digital Content Analyst
NBA

Anthony Ottomano
Manager, Social & Digital Content Creation
NBA

Victoria Guerrero
Project Employee, NBA Social Content
NBA

Mesha Mosley
Project Employee, NBA Social Content
NBA

Lauren Yelner
Project Employee, NBA Social Content
NBA