From the Chicago Bulls’ bright red courts to the New Orleans Pelicans’ purple and neon green scheme, bold — and highly polarizing — basketball court designs are helping the NBA draw viewers for its first-ever regular season tournament.
Click here to read the story at cnn.com.
Discussion Questions:
- What is marketing?
- Why is marketing important in sports?
- Why is marketing important to the NBA?
- What is the NBA’s “in-season tournament”?
- Why do you think the NBA decided to introduce the in-season tournament?
- What might that have to do with marketing?
- Why do you think they have different courts for the in-season games than other regular season games?
- How might that represent marketing?
- How might the in-season tournament help to improve the overall NBA product?
- According to this story, how much did each player on the winning team receive?
- Why do you think the NBA is offered so much prize money to players for winning the tournament?
- What is sponsorship?
- What is sponsorship inventory?
- If you watched any of the in-season tournament games, you would notice floor decals representing a variety of businesses and brands. How might that represent an example of sponsorship inventory?
- Why might a business or brand want its logo on a NBA basketball court?
- How might the different color courts, regardless of whether fans like them or not, benefit a sponsor who has their logo placed on the playing surface?
- Ratings for the in-season games were up when compared to regular season games from last year at this time. What are ratings, and why are they important to the NBA?