Competition to hold and own live sports coverage has been seeping out of the traditional broadcast and streaming sectors, and into social, for a little while now. YouTube, for example, has been working to acquire streaming rights to NFL games, while some leagues have been working directly with creators on the platform. Meanwhile X has spent the last two years attempting to lock in official NBA and WNBA content on its platform.
TikTok, too, is making baby steps in this direction. The latest is a deal struck between the social platform and the NBA, in order to boost official NBA and WNBA content to sports fans on the app and promote live coverage of the league’s games on ABC and ESPN to users in real time.
According to Kat Marquez, a former Nike and Meta exec who leads TikTok’s global sports partnership practice, pilot activations using the company’s specialised GamePlan features (which it began offering in December), generated 497 million impressions for the NBA, while a bespoke “Search Hub” redirecting users to coverage of the NBA Finals drove 426,000 referrals. It’s also sending several TikTok creators to NBA and WNBA games; in Marquez’s telling, the deal will bolster the platform’s cachet for both creators and as a second-screen sports destination, while funnelling future basketball fans towards TV and streaming coverage of the league.
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