NBA
What records has the NBA broken in Europe and the Middle East this season?
The league have announced that the 2023-24 regular season broke records across the NBA App and NBA League Pass.
The NBA have confirmed that the current season has become the most viewed in NBA history on NBA social media and digital platforms in both European and Middle Eastern regions, exceeding 1 billion views for the first time.
More than 700 million views come from league profiles in Europe alone, the most among major U.S. professional sports leagues this season with the league’s 18 social media accounts in the EME area (Europe and the Middle East), with content in eight languages, generated a 100% year-on-year increase in views, and the number of followers of the profiles in social media in Europe increasing by more than 50% year-on-year.
Four high-profile European players have contributed to this boost in Victor Wembanyama (San Antonio Spurs; France; 1.3 billion views; 3rd place), the five-time All-Star NBA player Luka Doncic (Dallas Mavericks; Slovenia; 1.2 billion views; 4th place), two-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets; Serbia; 618 million views; 6th place) and two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks; Greece; 558 million views; 8th place).
The NBA Europe YouTube channel also saw a massive incremental leap of more than 220 percent in viewing time thanks to the creation of localized content with the weekly Undrafted podcast, available in French and German being an example of locally generated content.
The number of NBA App viewers from the EME region also increased 39% year-on-year and in Spain alone, the average audience for ‘NBA Saturdays and NBA Sundays’, which this season includes more than 40 weekend games broadcast in prime time in EME, increased 48 percent year-on-year on local network Movistar Plus.