NBA Take-Two Media, the joint venture between the pro basketball league and video game giant, is ready to pull back the curtain on its plans for a rebooted NBA 2K League, a reboot that puts content creators at the center of the strategy.
NBA 2K, of course, is the flagship NBA video game from Take-Two Interactive. The NBA 2K League had been a competitive gaming offshoot, with teams competing in the game.
“The video game sits at the intersection of basketball gaming and pop culture in a really powerful way now, now more than ever, and the concept of the 2K League is essentially to bring that to life by putting NBA players, celebrities, creators and regular fans in in an entertainment universe, a character-driven universe, where they’re in video programming that is playful and fun and brings out who they are authentically, with competitive 2K as the conduit to that,” says Andrew Perlmutter, the CEO of NBA Take-Two Media, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
The company has opted to put content creators at the heart of its strategy, making the popular YouTuber Jesser its honorary commissioner, joined by a celebrity board, who will throw a wrench into the proceedings, while also participating in content.
“We call him a chaos engine. He’s the ringleader, and he is the narrative thread that ties a lot of this together,” says NBA Take-Two Media executive VP of creative and strategy Alex Addison. “His role is also to come in and drop crazy rule twists and issue trades. And because we’re not a real league in the sense that we are not beholden to the same rules and regulations as, for example, the NBA, his role will include playing pranks on some teams and causing drama between teams, so he really is an entertainment engine.”
Jesser, who was a Hollywood Reporter cover star last month, is one of the most popular sports creators on YouTube. He told THR that the line between pro sports and content is merging in interesting ways.
“I feel like the ecosystem is really blending, the creators have built a new lane in terms of the content they’re making, where each creator is their own production company and making their own sports content, and now they’re merging more and more with traditional sports,” Jesser said.
NBA 2K League will launch with six teams: The Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, Memphis Grizzlies, Toronto Raptors, Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards, and each team will pair a content creator with an NBA star. They will compete in the game and in real-life challenges
“We’re really committed to blending the digital and the physical,” Addison says. “So for example, one of the shows that’s coming out as part of our first tournament, we took our creators, we call them our team gamers. We took our gamers to a real basketball court, and they could only level up their players in game after competing in certain real life challenges.”
But in a unique twist, the league also wants to bring casual gamers into the fray, with an initiative called “Next Fan Up” that will let NBA 2K players compete against the creators, players and teams, with the potential to become a part of the programming.
“We want to turn people into players and players into people, by turning regular people into participants and humanizing the celebrity athletes that everybody loves, and this is a really unique opportunity to do it,” Perlmutter says, noting that the content they produce will be distributed far and wide across the platforms younger consumers are paying attention to.
“In a way, what we’re creating is a is a federated network of creator activity across Tiktok, YouTube, Twitch and and Instagram, and all the while, we’re giving regular fans an opportunity to actually participate in the league, and have a shot at actually winding up in programming with their their favorite players and celebrities,” he adds.
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