NBA Expands Into Hispanic Markets

The NBA has been into global expansion for awhile.  First, Europe's Eastern Bloc, then China, then South America.  But this year NBA is looking for expansion with in the US amongst Hispanic viewers.  Megan McCarty talks about the initiative below:

With the NBA starting in the next few days, its marketing initiatives are in full swing.  But it’s not just targeting the average NBA fan.  The NBA is trying to position itself within the fast growing U.S. Hispanic market.   Last year was the first attempt to try and target the Hispanic sports fan, and it resulted in a nine percent increase in its fan base.  These include increases in unique viewers, increase in overall viewership of television NBA games and startling increases in social media usage among Hispanics.   Because of the success of the program last year, the NBA is expanding its Hispanic marketing campaign, éne•bé•a.  This campaign includes an advertising campaign, an updated website, in-arena promotions, grassroots and community relation programs and different consumer products.  Here is more information on the NBA’s Hispanic marketing strategies.

 

This goes back to the discussion we had in class about the NBA positioning itself in the TNT market.  Our class thought that watching NBA games on TNT didn’t transfer back to watching TNT’s regular programming.  It seems to me that the NBA is trying to position itself within lots of different markets.  I don’t think that a brand as big as the NBA has a problem targeting so many different markets, but for a smaller brand, it might not be the best method.  A brand should be consistent, and too many conflicting target is not successful.