How the NBA Keeps Younger Viewers Engaged
Even as live sports remains arguably the only consistently reliable appointment viewing genre in TV, younger viewers are notoriously appointment viewing-averse. Yet NBA attention from younger fans is growing, according to NBA VP of Global Media Insights Michelle Auguste; it just shows up in different places, and requires following different metrics to make sense of and deploying different strategies and cultural touchpoints to cultivate the 24/7 fandom model that makes younger fans feel like they’re part of the league. Auguste discusses the NBA’s approach in this conversation with Streaming Media Editor-in-Chief Steve Nathans-Kelly from Streaming Media Connect 2026.
How Younger Viewers Engage
Nathans-Kelly begins the conversation by commenting on how the growth in the WNBA and the NBA is coming from younger fans. He asks, “What do the insights that you collect on the audience tell you about how younger fans are interacting with either league and the best ways to keep them engaged?”
Auguste notes, “So if you only look at traditional television ratings, you would swear that younger viewers are not into television.” This is true for most sports and other programs, she says. “And so when we look at our viewership across all of our different platforms, what we learned is that younger viewers are not disengaging with the NBA. I think in fact, they’re actually consuming more of our NBA brand,” it’s just that “the way they’re consuming it is very different. So they might not sit in front of the television at 7:30 on a Wednesday to watch a game, but they’re watching us maybe through League Pass or the NBA App or they’re betting or [engaging] through social channels or other nontraditional touchpoints.”
The Changing Nature of Fandom
The NBA has learned that younger viewers are “mobile-first, platform-agnostic, and they’re far more likely to consume content in shorter on-demand formats.” Auguste says what makes younger viewers unique is that their fandom is a 24/7 engagement model.
For older fans, “a fan is defined as someone who watches the game, maybe someone who listens to sports radio, someone who reads about the game the next day in the papers or on the website. The younger fans are more … engaged with our brand during and outside of game hours. So they’re following the players and they’re interacting with the players and actually DM’ing the players. And they feel like they’re part of the NBA.”
Using Cultural Touchpoints
Auguste explains more about betting: “We’ve seen that there’s a strong correlation between betting and engagement because if they’re betting on a score or how many three-pointers a player’s going to make, they’re more engaged and more likely to stick through and watch the majority or at least watch more minutes of the games.”
The NBA is “trying to reach out to the younger audiences by different cultural touchpoints and trying to bring in viewers or fans who would not organically or naturally engage with our product, but bring them into the fold,” Auguste shares. “So we do that through different cultural touchpoints like sneakers, fashion, gaming, lifestyle. And so what we do is when the players walk into the arena, we have a whole exposé on their fashion on our app and on League Pass.” As an example, she recalls a conversation she had at a conference with someone whose son doesn’t watch many NBA games, but he follows the players’ fashion and sneaker choices.
The NBA wants to engage younger fans, Auguste asserts, the organization just has to reach them in different ways, “by incorporating these different cultural touchpoints.”
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