NBRA
- Client
- National Basketball Referees Association
- Type
- Social
- Tenure
- 10 Years
you love to hate ’em
If someone says you suck at your job, chances are they aren’t your biggest fan. Nobody understands that – or gets told that – more than the referees of the NBA. So, how did we take the most hated refs in all sports and make people like them? We didn’t. But we did get people to hate them a little less. In fact, we took what was an 80% negative sentiment rating across their socials and turned it into a 70% positive or neutral sentiment. And that was a huge win.
Winning over one fan at a time
So how did we do it? One fan at a time. And for the first time, we gave refs a voice.
We found the most outspoken haters on social and asked them to come meet the refs, watch plays with them, and talk about why certain calls were made. Because we wanted to humanize the refs and for the haters to see the person behind the calls. And we wanted the refs to have a chance to defend themselves, show off their knowledge, and teach a little basketball 101.
Not only have some of these haters turned into the refs’ biggest supporters, one even decided he wanted to become one. Oh, we also filmed refs reading mean tweets. Some of you keyboard warriors are brutal.
Shooting Hoops
Case Study
Watch what you say
Getting these refs to show off their knowledge one-on-one was great, but we needed to show that to a bigger audience. So, we created #RefWatchParty where refs who weren’t working a featured game would tweet about the game live, in real time. The league and sportscasters thought it was going to be a trainwreck. And if by trainwreck they meant huge success, they were right. The NBRA gained 40,000 new followers. The league even offered to do future games in partnership with the refs using the replay center. Yeah, total trainwreck.
Refs Read Mean Tweets
NBRA Redesigned Website
You don't know jack
Sometimes an opportunity presents itself and you roll with it. During a game, a ref was hot mic’d and asked who a rapper was on the jumbotron – it was Jack Harlow – and we took advantage of that to have some fun. We helped the refs create their own music video to a Jack Harlow song. When we talk about humanizing these guys, nothing is more human than jamming out to a song and poking fun at yourself.
The video was viewed over 3 million times and the NBRA social account had more than 16 million impressions from this video alone.
Who Is Jack Harlow?
Web Video
