Consider it the Red Zone Channel for the NBA.
Imagine a scenario where a fan would get an alert via the NBA app on their phone when their favorite team is in a close game — within five points with five minutes to go — and they can instantly pay for and watch just the remainder of that game.
It’s the direction the NBA is moving, Adam Silver told Diamond Leung of SportTechie.“Certainly we’re going from a place where it was one price for an entire season of games,” Silver said, referring to NBA League Pass. “Now just in the last two years, we’ve made single games available. But I think you’re going to get to the point where somebody wants to watch the last five minutes of the game, and they go click, they’ll pay a set price for five minutes as opposed to what they would pay for two hours of the game. So I think you’re going to take the same great content, and you’re just going to make it that much more available to people who want it....
“I think it’s going to be a lot easier to watch games on mobile devices,” Silver said of the future.
“I think you’re going to hit the point where for example…you’re on a Twitter feed or you get an alert. I think there will be a lot more sophisticated alerts, and you’ll see ‘I know Sue Bird, I like Sue Bird, Sue Bird’s going for a record-setting game.’ And then you’re going to go click, and then you’re going to get the game.”
It makes sense. The NBA is a product and the goal is to get people to pay to see that product, not just watch the playoffs and some nationally televised games. If the league can get a fan an alert that Damian Lillard or Klay Thompson or whoever is going off on a monster night, or his/her team is in a close game, they might pay a few bucks just to watch the ending. Get the product in front of the people.
It’s also a smart recognition by the league that more and more people are viewing on mobile devices, and they may not watch a full two-hour game that way often, but they will watch some of it.