Just in time for the highly anticipated NBA Finals, the league partnered with WSC Sports Technologies to launch a Facebook messenger bot dedicated to helping fans find their favorite highlights.
By friending the bot on Facebook, fans were able to request instantaneous highlights from any player on the two final teams. Furthermore, fans could set up alerts to receive notifications via the bot when clips featuring their favorite teams or players became available. While the bot was created solely for the Finals, the NBA is hopeful that the technology could eventually feature ad content or allow fans to directly purchase tickets and merchandise. This execution falls in line nicely with the NBA’s overall digital strategy, which relies heavily on social media, including six-second clips on Vine and Facebook Live video.