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Examples show Facebook Frames available to fans of the Warriors, Hornets and Sixers. Frames are available for all 30 NBA teams.
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The NBA has signed as a debut partner of Facebook Frames, a new initiative by the social media giant to incorporate team logos into fans’ Facebook profile pictures.
Facebook Frames expands upon an effort in which several major college football programs allowed their marks to be part of a border on individual profile pictures. In the latest effort, the NBA team logos can be incorporated more directly into the profile photos.
The collaboration represents a large-scale, unlicensed use of copyrighted intellectual property sanctioned by the league. But similar to the NBA’s liberal stance on the proliferation of online motion GIF files and social sharing of highlight video, the league sees the new Facebook initiative as a tool to boost fan avidity.
“We see this as a rather delicate, well-laid-out opportunity,” said Melissa Brenner, NBA senior vice president of digital media. “We think fans are going to like this. We always want to be careful with our IP, and it’s something we always have to monitor and do on a daily basis. But we also believe, from the commissioner on down, that these types of things lead directly to watching our games and consuming more basketball.”
The Facebook initiative is to begin today at Facebook.com/GameFace.
The league, meanwhile, has rebranded and relaunched its flagship mobile application, NBA Game Time, which is now simply called NBA. The move mirrors similar efforts in recent years by the NFL, ESPN and others to rebrand and focus mobile efforts behind the primary brand name. The retooled app is more overtly focused on daily game schedules and the sport’s increasing immersion into statistical analysis and player tracking. The app also includes direct entry into the NBA’s League Pass and official ticketing portals.
The NBA also is expanding its previously announced effort to create a single-game option for its League Pass out-of-market package to allow one-click ordering from Facebook and Twitter. Fans will be able to follow links in tweets and Facebook posts to buy NBA League Pass games. Single games will cost $6.99, part of a new price structure that also includes an individual team’s full-season schedule for $119.99 and all out-of-market games across most linear and digital platforms for $199.99.
“This is a great way to leverage the social audience,” Brenner said. “We obviously spend a lot of time on those platforms spotlighting key matchups and important things going on in the schedule. So the idea here is remove a layer of friction and bring people directly from that environment into League Pass.”
