The Influence of Social Media on NBA Culture: From Players to Fans

Social media has taken the world by storm in the last few decades. From the invention of Facebook to the various apps that provide us with opportunities to engage with anyone in the world on a daily basis, the explosion of social media has had many ramifications that we’re only just beginning to understand.

One impact of social media has been on the workforce. Whichever industry you work in, it’s likely that you’ve learned that leveraging social media is a useful strategy that can bring you some real benefits as you progress through your career. This is true even in sports. Professional players, like those in the NBA, are reliant on their reputation to remain well-known and well-liked.

NBA players, as with all celebrities, not only use social media to directly leverage their careers, but they also have a unique ability to use social media to interact with fans. Using social media in this way allows players to harness the power of the internet to create change in the world as well as boost their public image. This provides fans with the opportunity to see a player’s public persona and thus gives them something to root for, whether that player’s on or off the court.

Sponsorship

One way that NBA players can use social media as leverage to progress in their career is by creating a strong fan base through which they can land sponsorship deals. Sponsors pay players to bring awareness to their brands. So players who have a lot of followers provide more visibility to whatever product the sponsor wants to sell. They may promote themselves and sponsor brands through merch, including basketball jerseys.

Obviously, a player needs to have a highly active social media account to attract bigger sponsors. So, the player needs to interact often with their fans, which they can do by promoting events such as where they’ll be playing next, celebrating wins, and congratulating fans on making it to games.

The player can also cultivate their personal brand if they’re looking for a specific sponsorship deal. For example, they can dedicate a certain number of social media posts to their speed on the court or their athletic ability if they’re looking for a sporting goods sponsorship.

Alternatively, they can create a brand by having solid connections in the industry and networking with other players if they’re looking for sponsorships for social events and meeting new people.

Regardless of the type of sponsorship the player is looking for, the key is always to interact on social media with their fans. This creates a strong fanbase that attracts the kind of attention that sponsors are looking for.

Fan-led Interactions

As much as social media gives the player the opportunity to interact with you, the fan, it also gives you unique opportunities to interact with your favourite players. Thus, in recent decades, social media has transformed the relationship between players and you, the fan.

In the past, your best chance at interacting with NBA players was cheering for them on the court, and you could only do that through attending games or watching them on the TV. If you didn’t live near a stadium or weren’t able to attend the games for another reason, you completely missed out on the in-person interaction.

However, in recent years, players have become much more available to you simply through your phone. You just have to have the social media apps your favourite players use installed. Games and highlights are also available through apps like YouTube, where you can watch and leave comments.

More than simply increasing your ability to interact with players, social media has also changed the interactions themselves. Rather than simply watching the players on the court or getting a press release from the team’s PR person, you’re now able to access your favourite players and their cultivated public personae at the click of a button.

This allows you to openly share your opinions on games, other team members, or the league as a whole much more easily, and it opens interactions between you and the players like never before.

As social media continues to evolve, these kinds of shifts are likely to become more common. It’s likely that the players are going to continue to feel more like people you know on an intimate level rather than strangers to admire for their sporting prowess.

Vortex Basketball

If you’ve been interacting with your favourite NBA player’s social media and want to show your support, try creating a custom basketball jersey with Vortex’s design tool. You can choose to replicate the exact jersey your favourite player wears or change it up to suit your personal taste.

Try posting a picture of your jersey on your own social media sites and tag your favourite player along with Vortex. Who knows, they might just see it!