A quiet initiative has given Brooklyn’s Nets a global fanbase, particularly in China
Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images
This is the first of a two-part series on how the Nets have quietly built an international fan base For those who believe that the Brooklyn Nets “don’t have any fans” or who claim to have “never met a Nets fan,” ignoring attendance data is just one bit of denial. Barclays Center sold out 99% of the time the Brooklyns took the court last season. That’s only 0.6% less than what the Knicks drew to Madison Square Garden despite a nearly 20-win difference in their records.
Sure fans of other teams take advantage of the more reasonably priced tickets than one finds a mile or two to the northwest and there will always be a rooting section for teams from Toronto to Los Angeles, some years more than others. After all, only 48% of New York City’s population was born in New York State, an even smaller number in the city. It’s a city of ex-pats. So, “root, root for the home team” takes on a new meaning if a fan grew up a fan of some other colors before moving to New York.
But out of the limelight, the Nets have been trying to play the long game for a while now, and international marketing is a big part of it. Internationally, the Nets are the big player, the Knicks more as bit player.
Brooklyn has been one of the most internationally active franchises in the NBA ever since Brett Yormark became CEO 20 years ago and raised his hand whenever the league needed a team willing to play games overseas. Earlier this year, when the Nets flew to Paris to play the Cleveland Cavaliers, the league released some data about just how big the Nets are overseas.
“The global fan base of the Nets is in the tens of millions. It’s [over] 50 million, which is tremendous,” George Aivazoglou, the NBA’s vice president, head of fan engagement, told George Lewis back in January. “They’re in the top-3 teams that are followed here in France, and if we look at countries outside the U.S. in general, they’re in the top 10. So the plans and the work that the guys deliver have yielded tremendous results.” ,
“That’s happening for a few reasons. Obviously, the team and the executives are very much internationally oriented as well; their marketing content is being created in [mind of a] global fan base. Also, it’s a great representation of Brooklyn in itself. Brooklyn is very diverse, a lot of different cultures and ethnicities and nationalities who live in Brooklyn. So I think they should embody that.”
Indeed, Brooklyn is the brand, as Ron Goldenberg, the Nets vice-president of international marketing and innovation, told NetsDaily last week. Brooklyn resonates everywhere as a cultural bellwether in music, in art, in music, in fashion, he said. It is a big part of why despite the team’s issues on the court, it’s become one of the NBA’s biggest teams internationally, its overseas fan base “outsized.”
“The numbers relative to the team’s history, the team’s success, the team’s superstars is astronomically larger than other NBA teams and quite frankly other global sports teams,” said Goldenberg who set up the international marketing team 16 months ago. “Even beyond playing international games — and there’s no doubt that that has been and will continue to be fundamental part of the strategy — has led to this outsized impact of fandom. I also think the Brooklyn Nets have done as great job of building the brand.”
Indeed, the official NBA estimate of overseas Nets fans is 53.6 million. They’re fifth in unique viewers from abroad on NBA League Pass, eighth in NBA App “favorites” and “follows” from outside the U.S., and ninth in Instagram followers from abroad.
They are also the most traveled NBA team in history with trips to Japan, China (twice), England, Mexico, Italy and Israel. They were even the first NBA team to make a round-the-world trip back in 2010 with stops in Moscow, Shanghai and Guangdong before returning across the Pacific to Brooklyn. Also, a lot of international teams over the years have visited Barclays Center in preseason, from Turkey to Brazil.
Led by Goldenberg’s international marketing team and BSE Global’s Chinese Business Strategy Group both of whose offices are one flight below the team’s practice court in Sunset Park, the Nets have been quietly winning the international space.
“We have owners who really understand what that opportunity looks like and looks like today,” Goldenberg told ND talking about the Tsai’s. “That’s our job. You have to push. It’s what innovation means. That’s part of it. it’s thinking about how we can engage fans a little differently. What our brand can mean globally and I think we’re just scratching the surface and I think we are doing a great job but we are not satisfied.”
Back in April, Joe Tsai spoke as well about the role Brooklyn as a cultural brand plays in the international arena.
“Brooklyn, right?. We’re in New York City, where else and how else can you get an opportunity that is kind of like a crown jewel, being in a big city in a big country with one of the most popular sports in the world,” Tsai said.
In China. the numbers are staggering. Let’s start with social media. The Nets have three times as many followers on Weibo, the big Chinese social media site, as they do Twitter worldwide, 7.2 million on Weibo to just over two million on the site now known as X. And that’s just the beginning.
Late last year, Mailman, a Shanghai-based sports consultancy, issued its annual “Red Card” survey of how the NBA is doing in China. It’s a compendium and analysis of which teams and players have captured the Chinese fan’s hearts. The headline for the Nets was that because of all that seeding of fertile ground, the Brooklyn Nets are now the third most popular team in a country of 1.4 billion, 300 million of whom play basketball. They’re behind only the traditional leaders, the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers.
Using its own ranking system — based on followers and engagement across the three most popular social media platforms, Mailman gave the Warriors a 374 rating, the Lakers 351 and the Nets 275. No other team came within 100 points of the Nets. The Knicks, who despite having New York in their name, finished 16th. The Dolans have never seemed to have much interest anywhere outside 33rd Street and 7th Avenue.
The high ranking is due to a number of initiatives, as well as the obvious fact that the Nets are owned by a couple who while holding Canadian and U.S. passports, respectively, are of Chinese heritage and are well known in China. Chinese fans also remember that both Yi Jinlian and Jeremy Lin played for the Nets, one in New Jersey, the other Brooklyn.
Mailman, though, says the Nets success is not just related to the presence of the Tsais in the team’s C-suite or its record of signing Chinese and Chinese-American players. Its author wrote:
Had an outstanding year on social, without question, finishing #3 on all three major platforms behind the Warriors and the Lakers. What continues to set the Nets apart is the level of activity they manage in other areas (beyond online) that contribute to their success, such as Chinese partnership integration, Chinese community and tourist events as well as celebrity crossovers.
Indeed, BSE Global, the Nets, Liberty and Barclays Center corporate parent, has a growing contingent of Chinese speakers pushing out content for Weibo and other social media. A quick glance at the Nets Weibo page shows just how extensive the effort has been.
Mailman also notes how the Nets events in Brooklyn, like Chinese New Year, carry weight with Chinese fans on the mainland as well as Chinatown.
They successfully activated two separate partners for their Chinese New Year celebration night at Barclays Center, organized a range of 20+ innovative events that catered to Chinese audiences and also hosted 20+ top-tier Chinese celebrities and artists.
Interestingly, Ben Simmons is among the six most popular players on one of the big social media outlets, Douyin, which is akin to TikTok. The only players in front of him are James Harden, Keldon Johnson of the Spurs, Luka Doncic of the Mavericks and Klay Thompson of the Warriors, one of the most popular players in China. Why Simmons? It was his support of an NBA Cares initiative to bring basketball courts to rural China. Working with the Nets, Simmons donated a basketball court in rural China, which is an NBA priority. It was a big hit, noted Mailman, leading to 4.2 million video views and 4.2 million reads on social media.
Two companies Tsai is a big part of — Alibaba and Alipay — also teamed with NBA China to set up a fantasy league (Alibaba) and Chinese New Year celebrations (Alipay) where NBA stars offer their New Year’s wishes.
Will the Nets rebuild affect things. The Nets don’t think so. Goldenberg argues that while the Nets are in a rebuild, that’s not likely to have a big effect on the international marketplace. Overseas fans in particular seem more patient than the ones in stands at Barclays.
“The on-court product is going to change. That we know. One year they may have championship aspirations, the next year that might dwindle, although I think the team and Sean (Marks) are so focused on building a championship level team,” said . But I think what differentiates the Nets not just as an NBA team, but as a sports team overall is the fact that it is truly a global brand and that’s part of its DNA...
“It’s about Brooklyn. It’s about New York.”
In Part II of the series, we will look at what countries the Nets international marketing team is currently looking at ... and how they know which one is likely to be fertile ground.
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