Well, if you are like me and don't speak Spanish, you wouldn't know that my title translates into "National Basketball Association Embraces Latino Following," that is, if my online translator is reliable.
As I was flipping through the channels a week or so ago something very strange caught my eye. I stopped at an NBA game. While watching the game I was baffled. The jerseys for the Dallas Mavericks said "Los Mavs." This was not normal so I asked a friend to be positive that I wasn't hallucinating.
It turns out my eyes weren't deceiving me. On February 24th, the NBA announced the launch of the third annual Noche Latina (Latin Night) event. This program recognizes players and fans from across Latin America and in Hispanic communities. This year, teams from eight out of the top 10 most populated communities will participate in Noche Latina. This is up from four from last year. The teams participating this year (in their Hispanic names) are Los Lakers, Los Mavs, Nueva York, El Heat, Los Suns, Los Spurs, Los Bulls, and Los Rockets. Instead of using the literal translation of the team names, market research decided to use the names previously stated because that is how a Spanish speaking NBA fan would say them.
So what's so special about Latinos you may ask? "The NBA has one of the largest and fastest-growing Hispanic fan bases in U.S. professional sports, and we want to continue building their interest in the game through participation, programming and events," said Saskia Sorrosa, "This initiative celebrates the NBA's unique and dynamic fan base with a focus on our Spanish-speaking communities."
Games played in the Hispanic jerseys are going on right now. They have been spread out from March 3- March 28th. There have been other activities for Noche Latina including Latin music at games and other special features and events.
I think that this is good PR for the NBA. It shows that it accepting of the support of other cultures, however, now I fully expect this for other communities that follow the NBA. There is a large following of the NBA in China. I would like to see a 我國晚 (China night) along with maybe a nuit française (French night) and some other cultures that have been in large support of the NBA or from a country that the NBA acquires players from like European countries.
I think promotions like these are very fun and interesting. I see that whoever came up with this idea must have used some of the same techniques we are using in class like targeting your audience. Also, the press release I read on this subject was well-writtten, using many of the skills we learned in class.
I found this blog quite interesting, educative and informative at the same time. I am a huge NBA fan and have wondered for a while what the “LOS” on their jerseys meant. I of course am one of those people who decide they’ll figure it out later but never get around that. I think it’s quite impressive how the National Basketball Association takes its service to fans of the court and introduces things like this t encourage more fans, increase diversity and give Latino people a sense of belonging to the NBA as well.
ReplyDeleteThis move might have been done to also increase the awareness of Hispanics in the NBA and its dominated by only African Americans and Caucasian. I would love to see other sport organizations get involved I process like this because it’s a well proven fact that diversity makes things better.
This is an interesting blog! I never heard of this before, but I think it is good for the public relations of the NBA. I think it's important for them to embrace their biggest fanbase as well as their fanbase from a variety of cultures! I also think that the promoters of this must have been thinking a lot of the things we've learned in our class. One of those is identifying their publics and getting their message across to those publics.
ReplyDeleteGood post!
Woh!! ... even i had no idea of this information dude..
ReplyDeletePretty interesting. And heck yeah, i have very little knowledge about spanish. I personally feel that it is very important for any sport to increase its fanbase. The more fan the game has, the more popular its gonna become.
The other idea that i thought about is, NBA should also start organising its games outside United States. This would accually help more and more people know about this game and tournament!!
Being a really big NBA fan since as long as i can remember. It does help when you start playing when you are young. I think it is great that the NBA gets Latino's to support it. They have many players with ethnic backgrounds in the NBA with an ever increasing number of players coming over from the draft each year. It is great for the sport and for the league itself in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great public relations tactic that the NBA is using. It will create an even larger fan base for the NBA and create a positive image in Spanish-speaking countries throughout the world. This will also most likely increase merchandise sales and other sales. I agree with you in that they should recognize other countries from throughout the world. It is a great PR tactic, and I encourage NBA representatives to keep going at this angle and they will receive a lot of profit from it.
ReplyDeleteYou are right you have to take into account all of your audiences and market the heck out if it. Our neighbors to the south are definitely huge basketball fans and one of the fastest growing populaitions in the United States. It would be stupid not to include them. Another market which is also becoming very huge is the Asains with Yao Ming being a dominate force and Yi comming into his own. With these two China has exploded on the NBA scene especially during the olympics this last year.
ReplyDeleteI am sure this has opened the eyes of many young latin people in U.S. I'm sure many young latin kids will see this and think they could be doing the same as the other latin athletes. Most people are probably like me and don't even know that Latin oriented people are becoming very popular in the NBA. This shouldn't be a huge surprise though with Latin populations exploding in the U.S. but it is nice to recognize minorities in the U.S. through marketing because it helps both entities gain popularity.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy these kind of events. I also wondered why they had different jerseys on but nights like this and old school jerseys are pretty cool. Its a way to promote the NBA in Latin America along with selling alot more mmerchandise. It helps to allow those in Latin America to have people they can look up to and watch on tv. Im sure many Latin Americans became fans of the Mavs just because of thier jerseys that night. Pretty cool idea.
ReplyDeleteI dint know about this and I like to consider my self a big sports fan, and now im going to have to pay more attention to sports center. Thanks for knocking me down a peg, lol.
ReplyDelete