How the NBA Scales Data Best Practices

Despite intense on-court competition between the 30 NBA teams, there is a strong culture of sharing data insights and best practices off the court. Michael James is the SVP of Data and Analytics at the NBA, and he’s run point on nurturing this culture. 

James explains, "On the business side, there is a lot more sharing that goes on between our teams because we want all businesses to do well and there are things that work in one market that might work in another market."

This philosophy of collaboration is facilitated by TMBO (Team Marketing and Business Operations), a group within the NBA focused on transmitting best practices across the league. TMBO enables teams to learn from each other's data successes and apply those learnings to drive their own businesses forward. It’s no coincidence that James launched his NBA career within TMBO. “I'm a TMBO alum from a decade between 2011 and 2021, so I know this space well,” he reveals.

In a conversation with Satyen Sangani, CEO of Alation, James shares how a culture of knowledge sharing empowers all NBA teams to innovate with data. Read on to learn the key takeaways. 

Facilitating knowledge sharing through live workshops and ongoing communication

So how can one team encourage knowledge sharing at scale? TMBO enables collaboration through live workshops that bring together data experts from different teams. These workshops provide a forum for sharing insights, best practices, and challenges faced in leveraging data to drive business decisions. Regular phone calls and dedicated communication channels further facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas.

If a team shares a successful data-driven initiative during a workshop or call, and it generates significant interest from other teams, TMBO recognizes the potential value in that insight. They then work to package up the key details, including the problem addressed, the approach taken, and the results achieved. This packaged best practice is then disseminated across the league through various channels, such as internal knowledge-sharing platforms, newsletters, or subsequent workshops. 

“We have mechanisms to create those best practices to codify them, solidify them, share them out either via internal intranet platforms that we have set up to share best practices or through any of those tentpoles, calls, workshop,” James shares. 

By facilitating ongoing communication and creating opportunities for teams to learn from each other's successes and failures, TMBO ensures that valuable data insights and best practices are not siloed within individual teams, but rather shared and scaled across the entire league.

Testing and implementing best practices, one team at a time

As James notes, "Every team is going to have a slightly different set of use cases to fill." So rather than mandating a one-size-fits-all data solution across all teams, the NBA takes an iterative approach to propagating best practices. They start by testing solutions with a few interested teams, gathering feedback on what works and what doesn't. This allows them to refine the approach before scaling it league-wide.

It starts with a hypothesis, often coming from the business side. “The organizations that are doing the best are the ones where the business leaders are forming testable hypotheses with data and want the data and the information and the facts to lead them to the best decision they can possibly make,” James points out. This requires an open, curious mindset, a willingness to learn (and be wrong) – and a readiness to adapt based on what the data counsels.

After this initial testing phase, the NBA packages up the learnings and shares them at the next workshop or team call. As more teams express interest, they bring them into the fold, continuing to gather feedback and make adjustments. This iterative process ensures that by the time a solution is rolled out across the entire league, it has been thoroughly vetted and optimized for maximum impact.

Driving better decisions and fan experiences through data

Ultimately, the goal of TMBO and the NBA's focus on sharing best practices is to leverage data to make better decisions and create better fan experiences. So, while the competition between teams may be intense on the court, the business goals of each team are shared off the court.

"The goal of all of those products is to make sure that we are driving better business decisions, we're driving a better fan experience, and ultimately that's gonna lead to more revenue," James elaborates. By investing in analytics collaboration across teams, the NBA aims to use data as a competitive advantage in engaging fans and growing the business. One such example comes from IoT sensor data. According to NetworkComputing.com, "In the National Basketball Association (NBA), real-time sensor data helps analyze player performance and design optimal training programs. The personalization enabled by data analytics boosts fan engagement by tailoring content and experiences to individual preferences."

How the NBA uses OKRs to drive business value with data

The NBA's commitment to data-driven decision-making is reflected in its use of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), a methodology that ensures alignment across the organization. While the NBA refers to them as key metrics, the structure is similar to traditional OKRs. At the core of this system are four organization-wide key metrics, prominently displayed on the NBA Reports intranet. These metrics serve as the foundation for cascading departmental goals, ensuring that every group within the league understands how their specific metrics contribute to the broader objectives.

James emphasized how deeply embedded these metrics are within the organization. He explains, “Every department at the NBA waterfalls off of those key metrics and sets their own, which are tracked either centrally or by department.” This approach encourages transparency and accountability, with data being used to monitor progress toward key results in real time. For critical metrics, the NBA even subscribes senior leadership to dashboards, ensuring that decision-makers have easy access to the most important data.

The impact of this system is clear: it enables every employee to be conversant in how their department’s objectives align with the company’s overall goals, fostering a culture of collaboration and data-driven performance.

Conclusion

The NBA’s data-driven culture, embodied in TMBO and underpinned by OKRs, has set a high bar for leveraging analytics to drive both business outcomes and fan experiences. By encouraging knowledge sharing, testing best practices, and ensuring that key metrics guide decision-making at every level, the NBA has successfully transformed data into a competitive advantage. As the league continues to innovate, this focus on data will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in shaping the future of basketball, both on and off the court.

Listen to the full conversation.