The NBA-Playoffs, the most exiting period in the sport of basketball every year. Currently the Conference finals are being played, so only the best four teams of the season are left to compete for this year’s championship. In best of seven series two teams usually play home- and away games against each other, this year all games will be played in the ‘bubble’ in Orlando due to the pandemic. Besides the amazing performance of the world’s best players, the thing that makes the playoffs so exiting is the huge roar of the fans in the crowd. Every highlight gains some extra dimension during playoffs thanks to the chants of all fans.
To try to replicate this regular atmosphere the NBA started a cooperation with Microsoft, in which fans are in the ‘Together mode’ on Teams. This function brings uses AI to bring people together on 5-meter-tall screens on the sidelines in the arena. It’s obviously a way different experience for the players, the home court advantage kind of disappears and for people watching from home the experience is also very different in contrast to all previous editions of the NBA Playoffs. This year, fans do have a ‘tap to cheer’ option, the amount of cheers for every team will be tallied up and shown on the screen at the end of the game to show the players how much support they received from the fans during the game. Sara Zuckert, head of Next Gen Telecast at NBA says the following: ‘’This unique live game experience will allow fans to maintain a sense of community as they watch their favorite teams and players.“
Overall, the whole experience and atmosphere of the NBA Playoffs is a bit strange this year. Anyway, the creativeness as well as the possibilities technology created to adapt to the current situation are worth mentioning and receive sincere appreciation. For the supporters at home as well as the loyal arena supporter this years Playoffs are historical and therefore we should focus on the beauty of the game.
References:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/07/24/reimagining-teams-experience-basketball-microsoft-teams/
Hi Gijs!
It is definitely interesting to see how they are trying to involve fans in the games. When leagues in different sports started implementing the crowd in different digital ways I was definitely skeptical. Of course the crowd is an integral part of the game, but the solutions seemed too shallow to me and not like they were really solving the problem.
However, after watching football matches with fake crowd sounds for a while I have to admit that it adds to more to the experience than not having anything at all. Another interesting result of the situation is that the audience is now able to hear practically anything the players are screaming. This has resulted in several interesting occurrences, but the novelty of it wore of pretty quick for me.
Finally, it is of course fascinating to consider how this is impacting the players. You said the home advantage kind of disappears, I would even go as far that it practically completely disappears. This is huge, as home advantage is such an important part of any team sport. Of course it will always be said that players should be able to motivate themselves, especially considering the salaries they are making. However, the fact of the matter is simply that it can be seen everywhere that it is not that simple and that external motivation from the coach or in this case the crowd can make the difference. It would get extra interesting when teams from different countries have playoffs, at a certain time it could happen that the team from one country is allowed to have fans again while the other country is still forbidding it. I sadly do not see a digital solution for this aspect.