The NBA seemingly capitalizes in the digital and social space more than most leagues, and the numbers from this season’s playoffs and Finals are proving just that.
While most of the attention is on the league’s increased ratings and viewership, it’s important to note that they’ve capitalized tremendously on social media — namely Instagram — which appeals mostly to people ages 25-34.
Let’s take a look at some of the Finals data through two games:
- Warriors-Celtics Game 1 highlights garnered 135 million views, the most ever for a Game 1.
- Game 2 has a running count of 92 million video plays — a 48% increase from last year and 83% spike from 2020.
- Plus, the NBA’s Instagram account posted a “Fan POV” of Jordan Poole’s buzzer-beater, which hit 11.7 million views, quadrupling their average video plays on Instagram reels.
There’s much more. Through the Conference Finals, they hit 5 billion views (3.5B on Instagram) on social platforms — a 32% increase from last year. The official TikTok account has driven 150 million views, a jaw-dropping 304% increase from the 2020-21 season.
By little surprise, the Warriors picked up the most Instagram followers this postseason (1.2M), most likely because of Steph Curry.
NBA data showed that any Steph-related content accounted for 231 million video views since the beginning of the playoffs — and a staggering 1.3 billion views on NBA assets dating back to season tip-off. The closest after him was Ja Morant at 789 million.
