Here Are the NBA Teams Scoring the Most Video Views

Here Are the NBA Teams Scoring the Most Video Views

And that’s just counting the “fans in the stands,” which is how most data masters in the NBA, MLB, NHL, and NFL label these success metrics. Hey, winning games on the basketball court requires your team to put a soccer-style ball in the other team’s peach basket more often than they do, so why shouldn’t the business of professional basketball be just as competitive off the court as the games are on it? Besides the fact that the NBA social accounts had the most views across all these platforms, here’s what I found: The Sacremento Kings Shoot and Score on YouTube Let’s start with YouTube, where I found this ranking of NBA teams: NBA with 186 million views Sacramento Kings with 6.0 million views Toronto Raptors with 4.5 million views Milwaukee Bucks with 2.5 million views Philadelphia 76ers with 2.0 million views Overall, I was surprised by the relatively large number of views the NBA YouTube channel is getting. I had assumed the League might get about 15 times more views than the “average” team on YouTube because the league has 15 times more highlights to feature in its content. When you win, you have more highlights that your fans want to watch, right? Golden State Warriors Take the Lead on Facebook Next, I looked at which NBA teams are getting the most online video views on Facebook: NBA with 1.6 billion views Golden State Warriors with 167 million views Cleveland Cavaliers with 132 million views Chicago Bulls with 75.9 million views Boston Celtics with 55.2 million views The identity of the top two teams on Facebook wasn’t a surprise at all. It’s also worth noting that half of the names on the list of top Facebook pages weren’t on the list of top YouTube pages: Los Angeles Lagers, San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, and Miami Heat. Instagram Users Love Those Cleveland Cavaliers Finally, I checked out which NBA teams are getting the most online video views on Instagram. Golden State Warriors with 174 million views. And the rankings for the Celtics and Heat are also different on Instagram than on Facebook.

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Basketball has come a long way since Dr. James Naismith created the game in 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Back then, it consisted of peach baskets and a soccer-style ball to condition young athletes during cold months. Today, the National Basketball Association (NBA) ranks second among domestic professional sports leagues in North America by total attendance (21,997,412), behind Major League Baseball (72,670,423), but ahead of the National Hockey League (21,429,412) and the National Football League (17,788,671). And that’s just counting the “fans in the stands,” which is how most data masters in the NBA, MLB, NHL, and NFL label these success metrics.

But there is another key performance indicator that virtually all NBA data masters have on their dashboards: online video views. NBA executives want to know if their team is getting more views than other 29 teams in what is widely considered to be the premier men’s professional basketball league in the world. This enables them to make and defend judgments based on external intelligence as well as internal evidence. Hey, winning games on the basketball court requires your team to put a soccer-style ball in the other team’s peach basket more often than they do, so why shouldn’t the business of professional basketball be just as competitive off the court as the games are on it?

To that end, I used Tubular Intelligence to discover which NBA teams are getting the most online video views on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Besides the fact that the NBA social accounts had the most views across all these platforms, here’s what I found:

The Sacremento Kings Shoot and Score on YouTube

Let’s start with YouTube, where I found this ranking of NBA teams:

  1. NBA with 186 million views
  2. Sacramento Kings with 6.0 million views
  3. Toronto Raptors with 4.5 million views
  4. Milwaukee Bucks with 2.5 million views
  5. Philadelphia 76ers with 2.0 million views

Overall, I was surprised by the relatively large number of views the NBA YouTube channel is getting. I had assumed the League might get about 15 times more views than the “average” team on YouTube because the league has 15 times more highlights to feature in its content. (Yes, there are 30 teams, which play 82 games during the regular season. But they each have to play an opponent, so there are a total of 1,230 NBA games in the regular season, only 15 times more than any one team plays.) This explains why I was stunned that the NBA’s channel got 31 times more views than the top team’s YouTube channel.

My second surprise was the identity of the top team: the Sacramento Kings! I had assumed that teams with winning records would get more views than team with losing records. When you win, you have more highlights that your fans want to watch, right? But, the Sacramento Kings have only won 21 games so far this season, and lost 45. And the Chicago Bulls have only won 22 games, and lost 43. Meanwhile, the Houston Rockets, with a record of 51 wins and 14 losses, didn’t make the list above. And neither did the Boston Celtics, which have a record of 46 wins and 20 losses. Essentially, a team’s performance in the YouTube rankings doesn’t seem closely correlated with the presence of a human highlight reel on the court.

So what key trends and insights would I add to the “action dashboard” of more than three quarters…

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