NBA Marketing Mix and Brand Building in the Australian Market

This report examines the NBA's efforts to increase brand awareness and equity in Australia. It begins with an overview of the NBA, including its history and current structure, and then delves into a SWOT analysis, identifying the league's strengths (e.g., global appeal, strong fan base), weaknesses (e.g...Read More

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Increase NBA brand awareness and brand equity in Australia
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SWOT analysis
Strengths:
The biggest strength of NBA lies in the concept that it is the biggest men's basketball league
with the best players across the world. Therefore, the fans are very much in the league and it is
the primary choice for the basketball fans. In addition, as opined by Chen et al. (2016), the fan
following of the NBA is strength of it’s as an average NBA match has the stadium viewers cross
20,000 that results in large revenues from the sales of tickets. The strength of NBA is excellent
broadcasting and merchandising of the league where the viewers and fans can watch the
documented rivalries. In regard of this, NBA has made tie up with the DirectTV to show the
match in its own channel (NBATV) and this channel provides update and news about the factors
and elements with league related information. Many of the matches are shown on the NBATV on
a regular basis. In the USA, there are many partners who have tied up with NBA and the partners
involve with communities around the USA (Martin-Gonzalez et al. 2016). NBA has
collaboration with NBA Cares, NBA Green and NBA Fit to work for the community. NBA
Cares works for youth with the internally-famous organisations and agencies to support
education and family development. In addition, NBA Fit works for empowering the fans related
to the health-related issue and finding the opportunities (Courel-Ibanez et al. 2016). NBA Green
made the partnership with Green Sports Alliance in order to generate the funds and awareness to
protect the environment.
Weaknesses:
The weakness of NBA lies in the ticket price as the ticket price is very high. According to
NBA website, the average ticket price of NBA is $59 and quality seats in match cost almost

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$500. Another weakness of NBA is high staff turnover and staff position in NBA is very
desirable around as it is included coaching jobs, administrative personnel and PR team and
trainer positions. However, NBA cannot retain the staffs and they look for a replacement. NBA
has been facing the issue of players' union and the team ownership (Chen et al. 2016). NBA
needs to negotiate with the team owners about time off between the matches. This type of issue
leads to the lockouts and strikes when the games are cancelled.
Opportunities:
NBA has opportunities to use the global fan base even outside the US and Canada. NBA
has started with the concept of utilising the Global Games that are included 4 international games
in a season. NBA can organise the events outside the US and it will lead the organisation to
discover new fan and viewers. NBA has the opportunity to bring new players in the NBA teams
and basketball has potential to become famous around the world also. Basketball is the second
famous game in the world after soccer. Bringing international players to the team will increase
the global fan base of the organisation. As stated by Gonalez et al. (2016), NBA can use latest
technologies to make access the NBA game for the global fan and they can come up with newer
technologies video games to sell in the market.
Threats:
NBA can face the threat from the Soccer as soccer is getting famous day-by-day in the US. If
NBA does not follow the expansion strategy to make the bigger event, it may fall behind from
the other international games like ice-hockey and football. NBA can face threat for the
government regulation as the government might start any new regulation or tax policy that might

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affect on the NBA. The credibility of the league is in threat as in America, other sports are
getting famous.
Marketing mix (4P’s)
Products:
NBA (National Basketball Association) is the professional basketball league in the US
and this league has thirty franchise members; 29 of them are located in the US and another one is
located in Canada. NBA started its journey in the year 1946 and it was named a Basketball
Association of America and in the year 1949, it was named itself as National Basketball
Association. In the previous time, there were only 17 teams as the advancement of time, it
became with 30 members. The teams are split up with east and west. In a season, there are total
82 games and 8 teams are selected in the play-off. The commissioner of NBA is Adam Silver
and he takes the decision on behalf of the NBA. Many foreign players play in the NBA and NBA
has its contract with ESPN and TNT till 2024-2015 (Nbc.com 2018). Games are mainly
broadcasted to the usual at the right time and it airs over regional sports network where the teams
are located.
Price:
Ticket prices are high in an average match in NBA. People can get tickets in online
platforms. The fans have to purchase the high priced tickets. NBA takes the strategy of premium
pricing strategy where the services or products sold at high prices. The advantage of premium
pricing is creating the entry barrier. NBA invests heavily on NBA league and it will be extremely
difficult for the competitors to come with same service or products at the same price point
without investing the same amount of money (Hollander et al. 2016). The high gross margin is

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associated with the premium pricing and this strategy will allow NBA to attain sufficient volume
to offset the large marketing cost. The individual team owners spend lots of money on their team
so that they play well. The sponsorships of the teams are larger and the teams have a large fan
base. NBA also sell the merchandise through licensed retailers and the top products are socks
and headbands (Staw and Hoang 2015).
Place:
NBA teams are all in the US and one team is from Canada. Therefore, the places
associated with the games are from the US and from Canada. The league is divided into two
separate areas, east and west. Each year, NBA organises a draft how the teams get the players
and best of the teams get the players. The game events organise in a different stadium and the
matches are shown in the regional channels along with online streaming. NBA targets the
basketball enthusiasts ad target group of the league is the male between 10 and 60. The
positioning statement of the league is the best basketball with best players (Nbc.com 2018). The
merchandise stores around the world are located in Manhattan in New York and other two are
Beijing. The people can watch the game by booking the tickets on the stadium and they can
watch the game even on the television set.
Promotions:
NBA draft is the promotional strategy from the NBA and it is the strategy to get the new
players in the league. The concept of NBA provides enthusiasm to the target market as they wait
for their best players to enter in the team. In addition, some of the famous players visit the stores
opened by NBA and it increases the footfalls of the customers in the stores (Gonzalez et al.
2016). NBA hence is increasing the opportunities in foreign markets through selling the

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merchandise to the customers. NBA does the NBA Final playing in the social media network
where the PR team asks the fans to keep on voting for the favourite team. This poll happens on
Facebook and Twitter both where the viewers and fans vote for their teams. NBA does the
advertisements on social media as their social media fan pages are very active. NBA does the
promotion in television, billboards, internet and social media. NBA has its channel on YouTube
and it is only sports channel to have multitude videos.
Marketing objectives:
Objectives of NBA are:
 To increase brand recall
 To increase brand recognition
 To increase brand perception
 To increase NBA knowledge in Australia
 To increase NBA and NBL relationship
 To increase NBA liking and preference in Australia

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Reference List
Chen, W., Lao, T., Xia, J., Huang, X., Zhu, B., Hu, W. and Guan, H., 2016. GameFlow:
Narrative Visualization of NBA Basketball Games. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 18(11),
pp.2247-2256.
Courel-Ibáñez, J., McRobert, A.P., Toro, E.O. and Vélez, D.C., 2016. Inside pass predicts ball
possession effectiveness in NBA basketball. International Journal of Performance Analysis in
Sport, 16(2), pp.711-725.
Gonzalez, A.M., Hoffman, J.R., Rogowski, J.P., Burgos, W., Manalo, E., Weise, K., Fragala,
M.S. and Stout, J.R., 2013. Performance changes in NBA basketball players vary in starters vs.
nonstarters over a competitive season. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 27(3),
pp.611-615.
Hollander, Z., Sachare, A. and National Basketball Association, 1989. The Official NBA
Basketball Encyclopedia. Villard Books.
Martín-González, J.M., de Saá Guerra, Y., García-Manso, J.M., Arriaza, E. and Valverde-
Estévez, T., 2016. The Poisson model limits in NBA basketball: Complexity in team
sports. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 464, pp.182-190.
NBA Stats. 2018. NBA Stats. Available at: http://stats.nba.com/ [Accessed on 26th Apr 2018]
Staw, B.M. and Hoang, H., 1995. Sunk costs in the NBA: Why draft order affects playing time
and survival in professional basketball. Administrative Science Quarterly, pp.474-494.