NBA In-Season Tournament Red Carpet

ABOUT THIS ENTRY

The NBA In-Season Tournament Red Carpet was a fan-engagement campaign that combined a social-first fan fashion contest and an immersive activation at the Championship to drive media buzz for the new In-Season Tournament format and celebrate NBA fans as the most fashionable in all of sports.

How does this represent “Excellence in Engagement”?

The campaign raised awareness of the In-Season Tournament, turning an unproven and relatively unknown tournament format into a buzzworthy cultural event that deepened the connections between NBA and fashion culture, as well as the bonds between the game and its fans.

In the span of a few hours on just two game days, the NBA Cup Red Carpet generated outsized media impact, attention and content. Every facet of the experience, from the position of the golden structures, to having the real NBA Cup on-hand for key VIP and celebrity arrivals, to painstakingly mapping camera angles was designed to transform the entrance moment into a content factory. And it worked, to the tune of 4X-ing the League’s average in-season social engagement metrics and generating $2.2M in earned media value.

Objective

Even as one of the most exciting, action-packed professional sports on the planet, the National Basketball Association was noticing a lag in viewership early in the season. With a regular season spanning 82 games, the stakes weren’t high enough early on to get casual NBA fans tuning in. To up the ante and give the early games more gravitas, the League introduced an all-new format for the 2023-24 Season, the first-ever NBA In-Season Tournament. The tournament-within-a-season structure turned regular season games into marquee matchups and single-elimination showdowns, with teams vying for a new trophy, the NBA Cup.

The League needed to raise awareness of the Tournament among core and casual fans and elevate the anticipation of the 2023-24 season into a must-watch cultural moment for casual fans whose attention was elsewhere. To accomplish this, the NBA wanted an activation that could generate buzz, views, and shares—witnessed by few, seen by millions. The primary KPI was earned media. Secondary KPIs were impressions and engagement.

Strategy & Execution

Casual fans were too used to ignoring early-season contests. So, to bring their attention back to the court, we looked beyond the court, to the culture. Casual fans may have been tuning out basketball broadcasts, but they were very much tuned in to the broader culture of the game. Especially, fashion. With player’s pre-game tunnel-walk fits going viral, the NBA intersects and impacts the fashion world more than any other professional sport.

Our insight: The NBA tunnel walk is the new runway—and by bringing fashion to the In-Season Tournament, we could bring casual fans to the game.

To bring that insight to life through a creative idea, we developed a campaign with 2 core components:

• The #NBAStyleChallenge—a social-first “tournament of style,” where fashion-obsessed fans go head-to-head for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to take their very own tunnel walk, alongside celebrities, players, legends and press, at the NBA In-Season Tournament Championship game in Las Vegas.
• The NBA Cup Red Carpet—a live activation featuring a custom-built archway structure that merged the worlds of basketball and fashion to transform the player tunnel entrance to T-Mobile Arena into a must-watch fashion moment.

Organizations

• Jack Morton Worldwide
• NBA

Links

•   Website

Featured

• Julius Erving
• Gary Payton
• LaMarcus Aldridge
• Miles Brown
• Mitch Richmond
• Ahmad Rashad
• Carlos Boozer
• Robert Horry
• Ian Garry
• Moneybagg Yo
• NeYo
• Curren$y
• French Montana
• Timothee Chalamet
• Bobby Flay
• Flava Flav
• Set Free Richardson
• Queen Naija
• Carson Roney
• Anthony Hamilton Jr.
• Ian Bellinger
• Speedy Morman
• Kia Marie Davidson
• Curran Walters
• Jesser
• Los Angeles Lakers
• Indiana Pacers
• LA Lakers Cheerleaders
• Pacers Cheerleaders
• Las Vegas Aces

Credits

Jessica Fisher
VP, Director of Production
Jack Morton Worldwide

Lindsay Nevitt
Producer
Jack Morton Worldwide

Natalie Morrow
Associate Producer
Jack Morton Worldwide

Tim Pritchard
Technical Director
Jack Morton Worldwide

Richard Shideler
VP, Group Creative Director
Jack Morton Worldwide

Zach DeLuca
Associate Creative Director
Jack Morton Worldwide

Chrissy Raftery
Associate Creative Director
Jack Morton Worldwide

Bonnie Smith
SVP, Group Account Director and Vivi Practice Lead
Jack Morton Worldwide

Marissa Lindstrom
Senior Strategist
Jack Morton Worldwide

Graham Kelman
Designer/Artist
Jack Morton Worldwide

Jessica Worley
VP, Sr. Account Director
Jack Morton Worldwide

Pat Heffernan
SVP, Group Strategy Director and Co-Head of Jack 39
Jack Morton Worldwide

Tammy Henault
CMO
National Basketball Association

Jenny Whitlock
SVP, Global Fan Marketing
National Basketball Association

Janine Dugre
SVP, Creative Services
National Basketball Association

Gary Mack
VP, Creative Services
National Basketball Association

Kim Clark
VP, Global Fan Marketing
National Basketball Association

Alex Gerson
AVP, Global Fan Marketing
National Basketball Association

Alaina Williams
AVP, Global Fan Marketing
National Basketball Association

Jacinda Ortiz
Director of Communications
National Basketball Association

Molly Yuan
Sr. Manager, Global Fan Marketing
National Basketball Association

Brianna Colon
Manager, Global Fan Marketing
National Basketball Association

Ashley Atwell
Associate Vice President, Social and Emerging Media Lead
National Basketball Association

Justin D’Apolito
Director, Social Content Lead
National Basketball Association

Adam Fedorko
Vice President, Social and Digital Content Creation
National Basketball Association

Tess Quinlan
Director, Content Planning
National Basketball Association

Kelsey Boyd
Manager, Corporate, Social Impact, Diversity & Inclusion Communications
National Basketball Association

Eyasu Delesa
Manager, Digital, Media and Player Programs Communications
National Basketball Association

Amanda Thorn George
Senior Vice President, Global Partnerships, Social Impact and International Communications Lead
National Basketball Association

Natalie Martinez
Sr. Manager, Global Fan Marketing
National Basketball Association