NBA increases sports tourism efforts with Forum in Las Vegas

There hasn’t been anything like “just an NBA game” for years now. Each game at a team’s home market is an event that includes promotions, halftime shows, fan activations, DJs, anything and everything could be considered part of the event, not just the players. 

Some of its tentpole events, such as the All-Star Game, have become beyond the game and more about the surrounding events that a host city can organize and use to promote the region. With that in mind and with the goal of tightening relationships with home markets, the NBA held its first Event Strategy & Tourism Forum during NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, bringing together 70-plus attendees representing 24 host markets.

“We’re constantly seeing that fan travel is increasingly becoming more multiday and experience driven. Fans aren’t just showing up for a game and leaving,” said Maren McKenna, NBA Director of Global Event Strategy & Revenue. “They’re really building their trips around sports, entertainment, food, culture, really the destination itself. So the opportunity is to be more intentional about how NBA events connect with that broader travel behavior. 

“For us, the forum was a way to really bring together the organizations that are closest to that work so that we could understand better those priorities, share any key learnings, and identify new opportunities to collaborate. The opportunity that we see is really to work with teams and local partners, to make those trips more meaningful, more connected and more valuable for the host market.”