In an effort to make basketball games not played by Blake Griffin more exciting, NBA TV is letting viewers vote what game should be televised each week.
Called “FanNight” (and sponsored by Sprint!), the league-owned network gives fans five games to choose from, with the winner being determined by votes.
The poll has been silently available only on NBA.com, but the league recently expanded promotion to its Facebook fan page, Twitter account, and Yahoo!’s sports portal. The NBA is also using the hashtag #FanNight to promote the weekly contest.
Currently in the lead for next week’s game is the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Golden State Warriors, garnering 49 percent of the votes. The Sacramento-Minnesota game trails in second place with 20 percent.
The initiative runs all season and could help bolster visibility of smaller market teams and the NBA TV’s lagging social media numbers—especially after taking a public relations beating during the summer-long lockout.
The NBA Facebook fan page has just 305,000 likes compared to the comparable NFL Network, which boasts 740,000 likes. On Twitter, NBA TV has 113,000 followers while NFL Network has 235,000 followers.
For the NBA, it’s time to step up its game.
Photo by Keith Allison