NBA launches campaign to reach Hispanic fans

[duncan228]

NBA launches campaign to reach Hispanic fans (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-nba-hispanics&prov=ap&type=lgns)

After years of courting the European and Asian markets, the NBA is trying to build up its fan base among Hispanics.

The league will launch a marketing campaign on Monday called enebea—the Spanish pronunciation of NBA. Featuring increased TV and internet exposure, plus community projects, the NBA hopes expand its reach among a demographic that makes up 15 percent of its fan base.

“I think that it’s a great idea,” said New Jersey Nets forward Eduardo Najera, who is Mexican. “I think it’s only going to help for Hispanics to identify with players besides the Hispanic ones, and overall I think it’s going to be a great chance for them to feel included in the NBA. I’m happy about that.”

Najera is one of 19 players in the NBA from six Latin American countries. Puerto Rico, which hosted the regional Olympic qualifying tournament in August, beat the United States in the 2004 Athens games.

The NBA on Sunday staged its 18th game in Mexico, most of any country besides the United States and Canada, when Philadelphia and Phoenix met in Monterrey. NBA TV broadcast the game in Spanish for the first time.

A Spanish-language Web site (www.nba.com/enebea) will include news and features on Hispanic players, and the league plans events to renovate basketball courts in Hispanic neighborhoods.

“With Hispanics comprising such a large percentage of our fan base, we have a responsibility to connect with them in meaningful ways,” NBA senior director of U.S. Hispanic marketing Saskia Sorrosa said in a statement.

The NBA has already played games this preseason in Europe and Asia, where the league has long been popular.

[DUNCANownsKOBE2]

So this is why Lebron has swine flu?

[Bob Lanier]

Because blacks who make their livings doing physical labor reaching out to Mexicans has worked out so well in the past.

[Obstructed_View]

I've heard Dan Issel is being put in charge of the campaign.

[METALMiKE]

Wasn't this launched back in 1973?
:p:

[Trainwreck2100]

awesome more shitty "noche latino" jerseys

[greyforest]

awesome more shitty "noche latino" jerseys

[Blackjack]

Nothing says community outreach like slappin' a good ol' 'Los' on a jersey.

Maybe they can really go fuckin' nuts and get their asses sponsored by Tecate..

[Obstructed_View]

Nothing says community outreach like slappin' a good ol' 'Los' on a jersey.

Maybe they can really go fuckin' nuts and get their asses sponsored by Tecate..

Maybe they could try giving away Chalupas when the home team scores 100 points.

[eyeh8u]

you just tell ironmexican to tell ten of his cousins, and then they do the same to 10 of their cousins, and so on, then you got all of central and south America except for brazil,

[Blackjack]

Maybe they could try giving away Chalupas when the home team scores 100 points.

Fuckin' racist.:lol

[METALMiKE]

Fuckin' racist.:lol

Mark Cuban does the same thing with Burritos.

[Blackjack]

I've got a whole bag of racist allegations..

Just keep lining 'em up.:hat

[Obstructed_View]

I've got a whole bag of racist allegations..

Just keep lining 'em up.:hat

Let's see here...


Make the players wear sombreros and big fake mustaches during the national anthem.

Change the font for players' last names on the jerseys to old english calligraphy.

Hold a garage sale for game tickets and advertise by putting boxes with arrows drawn on them on street corners.

Free parking for Chevy pickups carrying more than seven people.

[urunobili]

so games in South America when???

[Blackjack]

Make the players wear sombreros and big fake mustaches during the national anthem.

Funny, racially insensitive, but not quite racist.


Change the font for players' last names on the jerseys to old english calligraphy.

Clever and subtle, but condescending and 'racial.'


Hold a garage sale for game tickets and advertise by putting boxes with arrows drawn on them on street corners.

Celebrating Latino's entrepreneurial spirit in a back-handed and insensitive way; not full-out racism, though.


Free parking for Chevy pickups carrying more than seven people.

Yeah, that's just racist...

And I'm somewhat disappointed there wasn't a low-rider, Baby Jesus, or even queso reference.

[Obstructed_View]

And I'm somewhat disappointed there wasn't a low-rider, Baby Jesus, or even queso reference.

Low-riders were usurped by the black community 25 years ago in an even trade for hip-hop, so there's not much identity there, and gringos might not have gotten a chain steering wheel reference.

Much of the international community the NBA has been courting is Catholic, so I figured anything that targeted Mexicans was redundant. I briefly considered a faked image of the Madonna, but couldn't figure out anything funny that wasn't hugely sacreligious.

Anything having to do with queso couldn't have been any more insulting to the entire hispanic community as lazily throwing "Los" in front of the team names.

And honestly, being outright racist to a demographic that unabashedly refers to itself as "La Raza" is as tough as it sounds.

[IronMexican]

you just tell ironmexican to tell ten of his cousins, and then they do the same to 10 of their cousins, and so on, then you got all of central and south America except for brazil,

It should work. I'm on it.

[Blackjack]

Low-riders were usurped by the black community 25 years ago in an even trade for hip-hop, so there's not much identity there, and gringos might not have gotten a chain steering wheel reference.

Much of the international community the NBA has been courting is Catholic, so I figured anything that targeted Mexicans was redundant. I briefly considered a faked image of the Madonna, but couldn't figure out anything funny that wasn't hugely sacreligious.

Anything having to do with queso couldn't have been any more insulting to the entire hispanic community as lazily throwing "Los" in front of the team names.

And honestly, being outright racist to a demographic that unabashedly refers to itself as "La Raza" is as tough as it sounds.

:lol

I'd suggest the players replace the benches with lawn furniture, but I'm not sure the Mexicans still have that market cornered..

[duncan228]

The NBA: Where Language Happens (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=tsn-thenbawherelanguageh&prov=tsn&type=lgns)
SportingNews

So the NBA wants to get itself out there in Spanish, for Hispanics—which technically just means "Spanish-speaking people." Their enebea (http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/article/2009-10-18/nba-launches-campaign-reach-hispanic-fans) campaign, which launches today, has all sorts of nice touches like community outreach, a focus on Hispanic players and new courts for neighborhoods that speak a lot of Spanish. The unquestionable emphasis, though, is on language.

It may seem like an oversimplification, especially when "Hispanic" encompasses such a range of cultural groups. There's nothing more infuriating than someone who doesn't get that, say, Cubans and Mexicans come from very different backgrounds. In that sense, you could accuse the NBA of painting with too broad a brush, or maybe even being a tad bit insensitive.

But if there's anything the NBA's learned in its international marketing efforts, it's that all that really matters is having quality product and making it accessible to people. In that respect, language is king. Hispanic players don't matter across ethno-cultural lines because everyone identifies them, but because they can give post-game interviews in Spanish. It's not even clear that the target audience is Americans—since, after all, they speak Spanish in a ton of countries all over the world.

This contrasts sharply with the league's approach to, say, China. If you recall, Yao Ming wasn't just supposed to make the Rockets a ton of money on the side. He was expected to bring millions of new eyes to NBA telecasts, increase the number of those telecasts and generally allow Stern to tap into that market like never before. That was all well and good, and Yao certainly had plenty of Chinese press following him at all times—especially during that rookie year. But is Yao really the key to the NBA's popularity in China?

If he is, then why did we find out last summer that Kobe Bryant, not Yao (or Yi) was the most popular player in China? That's not to say that homegrown heroes won't always rate high or give people a reason to watch, say, that one team. But for a country or other circumscribed population to embrace the game, they need to go in for the whole league. And that comes down to giving them something they can really sink their teeth into, something that will hold their interest beyond mere patriotic fervor.

Yao may have been an effective gateway commodity. But after a point, the league had to stop focusing on him and expand to cover other, non-Chinese players. Otherwise, the league's appeal was limited. At the same time, friends who were in China pre-Yao have told me that kids on the courts liked Iverson and Vince Carter, just like in America. What they were lacking was the access to games, which is when it's on the NBA to make sure that games make it to China in a dialect closely tied to television ownership.

This new campaign is all about language. If there were any concerted effort to spotlight the best Latino players in the league, they'd spotlight Gilbert Arenas (non-practicing half-Cuban) and Carmelo Anthony (half-Puerto Rican)—neither of whom speaks Spanish. This is just the NBA in Spanish, with players capable of delivering information in Spanish given a starring role. It's probably learned a thing or two from the San Antonio Spurs, a team in a city with a heavily Mexican population, and in Manu, one star capable of speaking the language. If you build it in Spanish, they will take up the team as their own.

It also doesn't hurt that Spanish-language media is booming at the same time as the English stuff crumbles, or that the changing demographics of America make this move downright necessary going forward. It's just common sense for the Suns to broadcast all their home games over the radio in Spanish this coming season.

What's more, while it may seem like a token gesture, let's not forget how loaded the concept of language is, here and elsewhere. It's taken on political significance time and time again in our society, and even if all Hispanic groups are not the same, each one does take great pride in Spanish as its language. For the NBA to make this move says "you're welcome, stop on by." That, as much as having a token Najera running around, is what makes in-roads into a community.

[ShoogarBear]

I've got an idea: fiesta colors!

[PDXSpursFan]

Remember "Los Spurs" vs. "Los Suns" :lol

[Morg1411]

Cholo power!!!!