183 billion hours.
According to Netflix, that’s how long human beings spent staring at their screens while using the company’s platform in 2023. Divided equally across its roughly 270 million subscribers, that’s 678 hours per user – the equivalent of nearly a month’s worth of time (28 days) taking in all that sweet, sweet content. And in 2024, Netflix wants that almost incomprehensible figure to be even higher.
Is there such a thing as too much content? Absolutely not.
At least, that’s the line of thinking Netflix has adopted with its eight-part, all-access football docuseries “Receiver.” On the gold-lined coattails of last summer’s hit series “Quarterback,” the streaming giant once again partnered with NFL Films, Omaha Productions and 2PM Productions to deliver a behind-the-scenes, in-season look at the lives of select NFL athletes. Only this time, they’re the ones catching passes, not throwing them.
It’s the latest iteration of a branded content trend that’s proliferated across the ever-expanding sports universe, where massive corporations like Netflix and the NFL are joining forces to build their brands and reach wider audiences in new, innovative ways. Together, they’ve tapped into the rich market of reality sports television, where viewers are hungry for stories that go far beyond the playing field.
The NFL, to its credit, was an early adopter of this made-for-TV (now made-for-streaming) model, which has been a mainstay of the league’s content strategy since it launched its training camp series “Hard Knocks” on HBO in 2001. Billed as the first “sports-based reality series,” “Hard Knocks” set the standard for future all-access endeavors by giving viewers a brutally honest look inside the building of an NFL franchise as it gears up for a new season – tears, coach tirades, curse words and all.
“We know how to be a fly on the wall, I like to think, better than pretty much anyone in this industry,” NFL Films senior executive Ross Ketover told The Hollywood Reporter last fall. “We developed it starting in 2001 with Hard Knocks and have gotten better and better each year.”
From the success of “Hard Knocks” sprouted Amazon’s “All or Nothing” franchise, which debuted in 2016 as an in-season NFL reality series and later expanded to include international soccer and rugby. That same year, Netflix also began its foray into the reality sports landscape with “Last Chance U” before launching more recent, higher-profile projects like “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” “Full Swing” and “Break Point.”
All-access sports reality content is everywhere, and it seems like everyone (even the NBA) is angling to get in on the action, indicating the genre’s growing cultural relevance. But what exactly makes shows like “Receiver” and its predecessors so wildly popular? And why are big brands like the NFL, PGA, ATP and others teaming up with streaming platforms to produce their own content?
A Recipe for Good Television
Let’s start with the popularity: Sure, it would be easy to point to the fact that college and pro sports (and the NFL especially) are among the country’s most-watched television programs, which would logically lend one to assume that any reality series derived from such programs would automatically dominate the charts. But that doesn’t paint the entire picture.
Take Formula 1, for example. Before “Drive to Survive” debuted on Netflix in 2019, the international racing competition was a niche sport with a fledgling American audience. Now? F1 has established itself as a legitimate player in the lucrative U.S. sports market, thanks to a tidal wave of new fan interest stemming from the ongoing Netflix series, which released its sixth season back in February.
What’s true for “Drive to Survive” is true for “Quarterback” and the rest: elite athletes make for lively characters, and the drama-filled nature of professional sports makes for good storytelling. While the die-hards will always tune into the live competitions, good storytelling can transcend a sport’s usual base of subscribers.
For Netflix’s vice president of nonfiction sports, Gabe Spitzer, this was especially true for a show like “Quarterback.”
“The off-the-field stuff – the wives, children, trainers – was really important for us to hit on,” Spitzer told The Hollywood Reporter. “And I think we also try to be a little bit edgy in our sports storytelling, and work alongside Omaha [Productions] to push on that a little bit more.”
A Symbiotic Relationship
With Netflix’s industry-leading “personalized recommendations” algorithm, the barrier to reaching new audiences and retaining old ones across the platform’s legions of subscribers has grown astronomically low. Get enough people to watch a sports reality series right when it drops, and the machine will start bumping it up the results page and suggesting it to a broader array of customers. (Kind of like how SERP rankings determine webpage traffic online).
That ability to leverage a vast subscriber base and reach new audiences is certainly one of the reasons why the NFL and others have chosen to hitch themselves to Netflix’s wagon. And, like any content-based venture nowadays, Netflix’s detailed and reliable content analytics are critical for leagues to understand exactly how well (or how poorly) their content is being received.
But the benefits go both ways. In partnering with professional sports leagues, Netflix can extend its reach into the crowded sports media landscape without the same live event inventory as its competitors (Amazon, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery) and at a much lower price point (rights to premium live sporting events cost in the billions). Also, the nature of the behind-the-scenes docuseries allows Netflix to hold its release until long after the games wind down, thus satisfying fans’ intense demand for original off-season content they can’t find anywhere else.
All that is to say: all-access reality sports television, if done right, is a win-win for everyone involved. Leagues and their athletes can elevate their collective profiles through quality storytelling, and the streaming services that own the rights to their content can cash in on more views and happy subscribers.
Despite some minor early struggles with shows like “Break Point,” don’t expect this trend to go away anytime soon.
This article was produced and syndicated by MediaFeed.us.
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10 Unmissable NBA Social Media Posts From the 2023/24 Season
In the ever-evolving industry of professional sports, eyeballs are currency. Whether it’s the fans who pay to see the action in person, the ones who watch live on television, or even those who follow along through social media highlights, viewership is the most important driver of revenue — and, ultimately, the best barometer for a league’s success.
Sure, the games are still the primary product. After seven long months of them, the NBA’s 2023/2024 season finally reached its (somewhat anticlimactic) conclusion on June 17 when the Boston Celtics dispatched the Dallas Mavericks in a speedy five games to win the NBA Finals. An average of 11.3 million people tuned in to watch it unfold, primarily via network television.
But just like other leagues and countless other businesses (like Red Bull), the NBA has spent a better part of the last decade finding new ways to create new forms of its own content. To accomplish this, it employs what has become a sports industry-wide standard content strategy that pushes fan engagement through in-house photographers, videographers and reporters who work to deliver a steady stream of online NBA content. Teams are no longer just publishing the standard highlights, post-game pressers and run-of-the-mill media interviews; their accounts are growing more sophisticated, churning out exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, conversations with team reporters, intricate video and photo edits and much, much more.
Why are brands like the NBA and its 30 franchises producing and publishing their own content? It’s simple: branded content is one of the most effective tools with which businesses can drive and sustain customer (or fan, in the NBA’s case) interest. Sports fans love to be entertained, and leagues like the NBA have all the drama and intrigue — and content — to feed their insatiable appetite. Pro sports leagues are no longer forced to rely solely on TV networks or local news outlets to tell their story. With social media, they can deliver that content directly to the consumer and reach larger audiences than ever before.
There’s no platform on which the NBA does this better than X (formerly Twitter). Each team runs its own social feeds, and the various team accounts have their own unique ways of connecting to their followers, giving them the insights, information and entertainment they crave. In return, teams get instant feedback through content analytics, informing them of how effectively they’re promoting their brand and attracting new audiences.
It’s a key component of the NBA’s branded content marketing apparatus — engaging and growing its audience through mind-blowing graphics, funny memes or thought-provoking stories that allow fans to see a different side of their favorite players on the court.
With another NBA season in the books, here’s a look at some of the most memorable posts from 2024.
@sixers/X
The Celtics jumped on this popular NBA social media trend in the leadup to Game 2 of the Finals, setting the stage with a clever nod to the franchise’s storied past. It’s a remarkably simple yet thoughtful way to bring iconic photographs of club legends to life while stoking engagement and drumming up fan nostalgia ahead of a momentous occasion. What better way to get your audience excited about the present than tying it back to the best parts of your brand?
@celtics/X
Everyone appreciates a good clap-back — especially NBA fans. This Indiana Pacers post after their Game 7 victory over the New York Knicks took a not-so-subtle shot at ESPN’s panel of basketball analysts who all picked the Knicks to prevail in the series. The “keeping receipts” tactic is a playful brand strategy that shows a little personality and fires up the fanbase.
@Pacers/X
Team social media admins better be ready to capitalize when those special playoff moments happen. The Dallas Mavericks made sure to give their followers all the angles on Luka Doncic’s epic game-winning three-point shot over Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert in the Western Conference Finals. The three simultaneous camera shots (including the bench reaction) give fans another dopamine hit, while also giving the Mavericks another opportunity to tag one of its sponsors on a high-visibility post, a true win-win.
@dallasmavs/X
Sideline reporter Nick Gallo was a popular post-game fixture for the Oklahoma City Thunder this season during their run to the Western Conference Semifinals. On more than one occasion, he was mobbed by Thunder players after a few pivotal wins, and he even participated in the team’s signature dog bark after it clinched the West’s top seed. As those smiles can tell you, there’s a tremendous upside to having in-house reporters embedded night in and night out with the guys on the court. It fosters trust and camaraderie, which can lead to a few viral moments — like these.
@okcthunder/X
Sometimes, a single photo speaks for itself. Thanks to the many talented team photographers working throughout the NBA, team accounts can quickly produce their own masterpieces to disseminate out into the Twitter-verse (X-verse?) for fans to cherish. That’s what the Philadelphia 76ers did with this simple post the night Tyrese Maxey stunned Madison Square Garden. And while this tweet elicited some solid traction, a screengrab from the national telecast after this shot created a new meme for a certain New York comedian sitting courtside (spoiler: it was Jon Stewart).
@sixers/X
The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t go far in the playoffs, but their social team did strike gold with this amusing reaction video featuring a young fan’s strikingly accurate portrait of LeBron James. (It was the hairline that gave it away!) Joking aside, this is an excellent example of using fan engagement (the fan-submitted portrait) to create unique “bonus” content that lets the world see a more playful side of the athletes’ personalities. It’s this relatability that endears people to your brand.
@Lakers/X
Since we’re on the topic of art, it would be difficult to put together this list without at least mentioning the brilliant ArtButMakeItSports X account that has ballooned to over 470,000 followers. Within minutes, the human behind the page finds a piece of art that bears freakishly accurate resemblance to whatever screengrab of a sports image comes their way — and in this case, it was Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards crossing Denver’s Reggie Jackson into the earth. Smart move by the Timberwolves social team to give the curator of this account a big tip of the cap (and maybe also enjoy the visibility that comes with leveraging another account with a big following).
@Timberwolves/X
Sticking with the art theme, the Denver Nuggets found a creative way to recreate and amplify one of the team’s signature moments of the playoffs. The Nuggets enlisted the services of one talented artist to draw and animate Jamal Murray’s thrilling first-round game-winner against the Lakers, giving fans a new way to enjoy a big-time highlight — as opposed to a simple re-posting of the broadcast feed. It shows that sometimes, a little outside-the-box thinking can go a long way in brand promotion.
@nuggets/X
Teams posting player pre-game outfits is common across the vast web of NBA Twitter, but fit pics that get 2.8 million views are a bit harder to come by. That’s the magic of Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic, who showed up to the team’s first playoff game this year looking like Gru from the movie Despicable Me and set the internet ablaze. As it turned out, the carefully coordinated outfit was part of Jokic’s ad campaign for Despicable Me 4, demonstrating the symbiotic relationship between team accounts and their players’ promotional partnerships. (It also allowed the three-time MVP to show off a bit of his unexpected acting chops.)
@nuggets/X
Simple. Elegant. Timeless. The Celtics succeeded with this excellent callback to the iconic moment when Kevin Garnett won the NBA title with the franchise 16 years earlier. This photo of Jayson Tatum captured all the elation and emotion of Boston’s 18th championship victory, adding another indelible moment to the club’s rich history of basketball greatness.
This article was produced and syndicated by MediaFeed.us.
@celtics/X
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Featured Image Credit: Netflix.
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