Kyle Korver’s Atlanta Hawks want you to get your Tinder on. Image: David Tulis/Associated Press While the players on the court try to put it in the hole, aspiring players in the stands will look to score as well. The NBA‘s Atlanta Hawks are hosting “Swipe Right Night” for fans of the team and users of Tinder, the ever-popular dating (read: hooking up) app. At time of this writing, details were scant. But this is a real thing happening on Wednesday. It’s going down, we’re yelling…swipe riiiiiiiiight! Tickets: http://t.co/Y3WapEohHu pic.twitter.com/e8EWjYE3QZ — Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) January 5, 2015 Before you laugh (well, it’s probably too late for that), remember that some professional athletes do use Tinder. Will any Atlanta benchwarmers be swiping from the sidelines? The Eastern Conference-leading Hawks, which includes a player with emoji tattoos, is one of the NBA’s most creative teams on social media. So what appears to be the very first tinder night in pro sports history isn’t all that far-fetched for the team. A team spokesperson told Mashable that more details on just what “Swipe Right Night” entails will arrive soon. We’ll be sure to update this post when we receive them. UPDATE: Here’s more detail from the Hawks, pasted from a Tuesday afternoon press release. The Atlanta Hawks are encouraging fans to use the people-connecting mobile app Tinder to transform Philips Arena into the premier social networking hub in the NBA. “Swipe Right Night” will take place on Jan. 7, when the Eastern Conference-leading Hawks welcome the Memphis Grizzlies to town for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff. “Hawks games have always been a great place to meet fun and vibrant people and we think ‘Swipe Right Night’ will take that to a whole new level,” said Hawks CEO Steve Koonin. “We were pioneers of the in-game ‘Kiss Cam’ and are hopeful that we can assist in making some more love connections at our games.” Fans who use the app can simply swipe right to express interest in meeting other Hawks fans while at the venue. If the user gets a like in return … it’s a match. Designated in-arena locations will be provided for Tinder users to meet and will also include the chance to mingle with Jezebel Magazine’s Most Eligible Atlantans, who will also be in attendance. The night’s theme of connecting Hawks fans will include unique in-game promotions and continue when team radio broadcast partner 92-9 The Game treats select fans to a special dating game involving on-air talent. BONUS: 25 of YouTube’s Funniest Sports Fails Sports Fails 1. Golf Cart Fail This runaway vehicle wreaked minor on-field havoc following a high school football championship in Texas last December. But a heroic bystander hopped aboard and put on the brakes. No casualties occurred, and the clip immediately became Internet legend. 2. Penalty Kick Fail Watch out for the ricochet, goalie! This kid gets it in the right in the chops. 3. Mascot on Rollerblades Fail What happens when you put an inflatable dinosaur on […]
The NBA‘s first game ever was played on Nov. 1, 1946 — 66 years ago today. A bunch of white guys wore short shorts, ran the ol’ three man weave and hoisted two-handed set shots from a court bereft of a three-point line. The New York Knickerbockers took down the Toronto Huskies by a score of 68-66 in front of 7,090 fans that day. If you were taller than six-foot-eight George Nostrand, you got free admission. If you weren’t, however, the max you would have had to pay was $2.50. Player salaries, meanwhile, averaged about $5,000 for a season. Thanks to YouTube, the old-school newsreel above shows us just how far the game has come since 1946. The best Knicks tickets today cost thousands of dollars, even marginal players can earn $10 million per year (we’re looking at you, Andris Biedrins) and spectators of the league’s first game certainly didn’t see plays like this: Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/11/01/first-nba-game-video/
“Here come the balls, big orange balls…” Sound familiar? That’s essentially the NBA‘s take on the classic holiday tune “Carol of the Bells,” as seen in the creative ad embedded above. Featuring five of the NBA’s biggest stars covering the song via basketball dribble, it’s meant to promote the NBA’s special one-color jerseys players will wear Christmas Day and premieres on TV during Wednesday night’s games. The spot was produced by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the advertising agency behind the legendary “Got Milk?” spots and other well-known campaigns. Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/11/21/nba-ad-holiday/
Dallas Mavericks guard Vince Carter (rear) with forward Dirk Nowitzki of Germany during an NBA game against the Washington Wizards in January 2013. Image: Nick Wass/Associated Press When the 2014-2015 NBA season tips off this fall, the league’s official game ball will still be that familiar orange-brown hue. It will still be made by Spalding and will still have the same feel as last year. But the ball will come with one change — a minor one, but one that speaks volumes to how heavily the NBA has adopted and benefitted from social media in recent years. The NBA announced that it will imprint its social media handle — @NBA on all major networks — on official game balls, proclaiming the move a pro sports first. The NBA’s official game ball will feature its social media handle for the first time. Image: NBA It may not seem like a huge deal, but the NBA’s new marketing twist does signify the increasingly intertwined digital and physical segments of the pro sports world. It’s also appropriate for a league that has found success on social media like few, if any, of its peers. “First and foremost, it’s really about acknowledging our social media-savvy fans,” Melissa Rosenthal Brenner, the NBA’s senior vice president of digital media, told Mashable via email. “The ball is the instantly-recognizable symbol of our game, and now our fans have a place there too, where they belong.” The NBA claims 660 million social media followers, rolling together league, team and player accounts across networks and countries. The league says its official @NBA accounts have 25 million Facebook fans, nearly 11 million Twitter followers, over 3 million Instagram followers and 72 million total followers on Chinese social networks. LeBron James, not surprisingly, is the league’s most popular player online. With more than 20 million Facebook fans, 13 million Twitter followers and 6 million Instagram followers, he outpaces the league on the latter two social networks. So how did the league and its players amass such a massive social following? “It’s probably a combination of things,” Brenner told Mashable. “First, it is our tech-savvy and prolific players; second, we work very hard to provide our young and passionate fans with all the information, stats and highlights they tell us they want; and third, it is our leadership — starting with our commissioner Adam Silver — that encourages us to use new tools in order to continually enhance the fan experience.” Those millions upon millions of fans will be represented in NBA games starting this fall. Social media handles have become ubiquitous in arenas and stadiums in every sport, but don’t be surprised to see more leagues follow the NBA’s lead and stamp them on actual game balls in the future. 15 YouTube Videos of NBA Stars Dominating in High School 1. Derrick Rose The Chicago Bulls point guard starred at the Windy City’s Simeon Career Academy in high school before playing one season of college ball then getting picked first overall […]
