NBA’s new Facebook game, NBA Legend, will allow players to create avatars and place them on actual teams.1:55 p.m. | Updated to clarify the N.B.A.’s role in its console gaming business.
The National Basketball Association is hoping that people will find training digital basketball players as fascinating as tending to virtual farms.
The league is introducing a social video game on Facebook this week. In the game, called NBA Legend, Facebook users will create an avatar, join an N.B.A. basketball team, and follow a simulated career. Players will not control the dribbling and shooting, but instead build up — or purchase — attributes like speed and skill in order to compete against people in their network.
The game is part of a wide-ranging social media campaign by the N.B.A., which has been trying to turn its millions of connections to fans on sites like Twitter and Facebook into new revenue sources. It is being released during the league’s All-Star week, which has traditionally been a time for the N.B.A. to experiment with new forms of media and technology.
Social media is becoming an increasingly important part of the way that Americans watch their sports. Many professional players maintain Twitter feeds that provide an interesting supplement to their comments to the media, not least because they are much less guarded online than they are when standing in front of a microphone (this trend has not been without its downside as a public relations tool, as players have at times sent Twitter messages during games and used social media to mock and threaten one another with violence).
Fans have also incorporated social networking into their routines, flocking to the players’ pages, and regularly interacting with professional journalists or the teams and leagues themselves. During the final moments of this year’s Super Bowl, fans sent over 4,000 messages per second on Twitter. The N.B.A.’s posts on Facebook regularly get hundreds of comments.
With 2.2 million followers on Twitter and over seven million people who like its Facebook page, the N.B.A. has a significantly larger presence than any other American sports league. It claims that it is connected to 82 million people between its official pages, team pages, and pages maintained by its players. (This measure is misleading, however, because it counts someone who, for instance, follows the league both on Twitter and Facebook as two separate people.)
The N.B.A. already has deals with Electronic Arts to make console video games featuring its players and teams, but league officials said that they wanted to keep tighter control over NBA Legend, which they want to coordinate with other social media efforts. They chose to work with Lionside, the game developer who created the game, largely to maintain that control.
“Our console gaming business is mostly a licensing business, where we’re approached by game developers,” said Brian Perez, the senior vice president and general manager of the league’s digital operations. “We are an actual partner in this business. That was the important part here.”
The league does work with Electronic Arts to develop console games but it sees NBA Legend as a game that will change more over time, and so will require more continuing involvement.
Mr. Perez said the N.B.A. sees NBA Legend as a way to keep fans engaged in basketball even when no games are being played. It also hopes to draw revenue by persuading fans to purchase virtual shoes, sports drinks and other products that they will use to improve the performance of their avatars.
The league is also looking to create deals with sponsors who will pay to market virtual items within the game. No such arrangements will be ready when the game is introduced.