Sports Media Watch was on-site at NBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis. Here are some takeaways from the three-day extravaganza.
Inside an NBA “bubble”
NBA All-Star Weekend is emblematic of the phrase ‘you had to be there.’ In person, it is a three-day basketball expo and family reunion — an NBA-Con if one will — in which one is liable to ride in an elevator with Andre Iguodala or spot Gheorghe Muresan coming out of one. Starting with the league’s annual Friday morning tech summit, the weekend is so stacked with events that the game itself is almost beside the point. Even with Indianapolis suffering an ill-timed cold snap, including driving snowfall on Friday, it is hard not to describe All-Star Weekend as an enjoyable experience.
Yet coming out of All-Star weekend, the conversation centered on what is wrong with the game. NBA commissioner Adam Silver was prophetic when he noted Saturday that the quality of the All-Star Game itself tends to determine how the entire weekend is perceived. The Eastern Conference romped to a record 211 points, the kind of total one might hear Steve Harvey mention at the end of a Family Feud segment, in a ho-hum rout of the West. Silver and the NBA made real effort to improve the viewing experience, cutting down the ostentatious pregame introductions and halftime show, and still ended up with a product that was enervating in person and presumably excruciating on television. As it was the last event of the weekend, it was the first topic of conversation on the Monday talk shows.
Even the highlight of the weekend, Saturday’s Stephen Curry vs. Sabrina Ionescu three-point contest, generated a few negative headlines due to Kenny Smith’s commentary on TNT. Inside Lucas Oil Stadium, “Stephen vs. Sabrina” could elicit no complaints. On television, at least some portion of the 5.4 million viewers watching the contest had cause to grumble. It would be a stretch to say that Smith overshadowed the event — and social media and the blogosphere are incentivized to exaggerate backlash — but it nonetheless put a needless damper on the most-watched All-Star Saturday Night since 2020.
“NBA bubble” remains an evocative term nearly four years after the league’s 2020 return to play at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Yet it can refer to much more than the specter of empty, sterile gyms and football-season Finals. All-Star weekend is a sort of NBA bubble, wherein you are surrounded by the league’s iconography — and no shortage of icons — in a controlled environment where most of those you encounter are favorably disposed to the game. It is easy to feel positively attuned toward the league in such an environment. Heading into crucial media rights negotiations next month, the question for the league is how to get those good vibes to emanate beyond its bubble.
Is A.I. the answer?
One could argue that none of the actual All-Star events was as interesting as the NBA’s annual tech summit Friday morning, which featured a who’s-who of media analysts and executives discussing the league’s various endeavors.
The league unveiled its new “NB-AI” initiative at said tech summit and the possibilities are considerable — assuming that what the league put on display is actually feasible in a live game environment. What was displayed on Friday — the real-time, AI-generated conversion of live play into styles such as a dramatic film or comic book — seems as of 2024 to be impossible without considerable delay. One speaker at the tech summit suggested that the capabilities of AI in five years are unimaginable from the current vantage point, and that may well be true. It will have to be in order for what the league displayed to be feasible.
The AI-generated ‘simulcast’ has the potential to attract younger fans who are bored by the traditional presentation of games. The NFL has used augmented reality to success with its Nickelodeon simulcasts, but realistically the audience for those games is marginal (by NFL standards). It is also the case that any great new technology, after first capturing the imagination, eventually loses its juice. One can imagine a young viewer being enthralled by the first AI-generated Spiderman version of a Knicks-Bucks game and going back to his or her video game of choice after the tenth.
AI was the star of the NBA summit, with multiple sessions devoted specifically to the technology. Beyond the AI-generated gameplay, the league also showed off the ability of AI to give Victor Wembanyama the facial features of Ahmad Rashad. Interesting as it was, the display was more a showcase of the potential malign possibilities of AI than of anything particularly relevant to the NBA.
How the new court looked
The league used a new “state-of-the-art full video LED court” for All-Star events at Lucas Oil Stadium, and it was one of the stars of the weekend. The court is more impressive on television than in person, as the colors appeared more washed out in reality than on the stadium’s immense video board (or even a so-so hotel television set). The graphics displayed on the court offered those in attendance a convenient display of information (at least from the right vantage point), but the court is clearly more a creation for television than the fan in the stands. The big issue is how much the graphical capabilities can be used in any setting beyond the arcade environment of All-Star weekend.
In the event the LED court is ever used on actual games, it is assuredly the case that it will be used to display the on-court advertising that is currently superimposed onto the television feed. Perhaps it may be used to display the top-of-the-key 24-second shot clock graphic used on TNT broadcasts. Beyond that, the question becomes how distracting such graphics might be for the players. The players seemed unfazed during the Saturday night events, but that might not be the case for an actual game. Dunk contest participant Jaylen Brown said in a postgame media availability that the court was “slippery,” a complaint he levied against the special In-Season Tournament courts earlier in the year as well. Expect considerable testing of the concept before the NBA ever ditches the hardwood for good.
Media upheaval
As mentioned previously, the NBA will begin negotiations on a new media rights deal next month. Those discussions are set to begin amidst a period of great uncertainty in the industry, coming within weeks of the announcement of a new direct-to-subscriber bundle for ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox. That effort is expected to receive antitrust scrutiny, but the networks’ position is that their service will not reduce competition, as they have no intention of bidding collectively on sports rights. While the NFL is reportedly upset over the effort, the NBA has been publicly supportive, if not effusive in its praise. At his media availability Saturday, Silver said he thinks the bundle is “positive to the extent that consumers have more choices,” but somewhat pointedly added that he had not much else to say as he was “just learning about it.”
As for the next media rights deal, ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon and YouTube were all represented at the Friday tech summit, and while there was some “NBA on NBC” nostalgia — emcee Ahmad Rashad at one point introduced interviewer Bob Costas for what Costas noted was the first time since 2002 — there was no Comcast contingent.
The next face of the game
The question of who might succeed LeBron James as face of the NBA was particularly pertinent during All-Star weekend, as ESPN’s Tim Bontemps asked many of the participants their opinion for a piece published Monday. The responses were largely as one would expect – touting the range of young, rising stars in the league. Clearly, the league seems to have particularly high hopes in Victor Wembanyama, who in addition to demonstrating some of the AI capabilities also served as a panelist during the Friday tech summit. Wembanyama more than held his own, showing the kind of maturity and poise that is rare for a first-year player.
