FAN MARKETING LESSONS FROM THE NBL

What was the real MVP of the NBL season? The fan marketing playbook.

In the NBL, energy and attention are everything—and this year, the smartest teams didn’t just ride the hype; they engineered it. Through habit-forming engagement campaigns, high-impact sponsorships, and community-first activations, the 2024/25 season was a masterclass in turning fan attention into long-term value.

At Tradable Bits, we’re proud to power the fan marketing engine behind 6 of 10 NBL teams this year -  helping marketers across the league collect clean  data, activate across channels and prove value to stakeholders at every touchpoint. 

Whether you’re building campaigns for a global tournament or a local fanbase, here’s what every sports marketer can learn from the NBL’s top 13 engagement plays.

But first, NBL by the Numbers

• 🏀 6/10 NBL teams partnered with Tradable Bits
• 🎯 64% increase in new fan acquisition on Tradable Bits
• 🕹 550+ engagement campaigns launched
• ⏱ 11,850+ hours of active fan dwell time
• ✉️ 240,000+ email & SMS opt-ins
• 🚀 110% increase in participating fans year-over-year

Fan Engagement

Initiatives that turned passive viewers into active participants

When you think about how hard it is to earn attention, every click, quiz, MVP campaign, or prediction executed by fans is a micro-conversion. It’s the first step in building a longer-term relationship. These teams understand the power of entertainment, in large or small doses, and are building repeatable rituals to ensure that their fans are not only having fun but also feeling valued.

Perth Wildcats - Japan Trivia Challenge

The team at the Perth Wildcats looked at their overseas preseason tour and asked, “How do we turn this into a win for fans at home, and fans in Japan?” Simple. The Wildcats launched a trivia game about their trip to Japan. The fun twist? The thank-you page of the game featured a leaderboard with scores from Perth Wildcats players, letting fans compare themselves to the pros. It was a low-cost, high-engagement play during a content-scarce off-season.

Bits of Insight
Small, seasonal moments - when paired with smart creative,  and a simple CTA - can drive deep engagement even in downtime. Also, a simple “presented by” ensured a smart tie-in to commercial sponsor Flight Centre.  

Tasmania JackJumpers - Competition Tuesdays

The team at the JackJumpers understand the power of cadence. Every Tuesday, fans visited the JackJumpers Fan Hub to enter a new campaign, gamifying their giveaways. By anchoring engagement to a specific day of the week, they trained fans to return weekly, creating predictable sponsor impressions and stickier traffic inside their hub.

Bits of Insight
Recurring campaigns create habit loops. Weekly drops = weekly data + recurring brand value. Those 24 hours became something every fan knew to look out for.

Adelaide 36ers - 36ers Got Talent 

One of our favourite initiatives across the NBL is the Kids Takeover Round, where teams invite their young fans to participate in various game-day activities, from MCs to half-time entertainment. 

While the Adelaide 36ers picked a select number of kids to participate in their gameday round, they created submission requirements that promoted a fun experience for all young fans - not just the winners. Kids submitted videos showing off their talents or their co-hosting skills. And it didn’t end there. As part of the round, the club also launched a creative drawing competition featuring jerseys, mascots and players. What a masterclass in celebrating the next generation of fans.

Bits of Insight
When working with junior fans, focus on experiences that deliver emotional engagement, high-sharability and ease of participation! 

Sydney Kings - Predict the Pick

Bringing it back to the basics, the team at the Sydney Kings launched a week-over-week “predict the pick” where fans were asked to guess which Kings player would lead in key stats - points, rebounds, assists - for upcoming games. No flashy sponsor. No high-value prize. Just a simple gamified touchpoint that ran across multiple games.

Despite its simplicity, the campaign saw week-over-week participation. Why? Because it taps into something fundamental: we all want to prove that we know our team. 

Bits of Insight
This is a textbook example of a lightweight campaign that reinforces and validates fandom. The predictive format works because it blends prediction (a forward-looking behaviour) with feedback (did I get it right?) - driving habit, emotional investment and shareability (who’d you pick?). 

Sponsorship

Initiatives that make the brand feel like a part of the team

The best sponsor activations provide value to the fan and value from the fan. These teams delivered initiatives that did both.

NBL League Wide - 12 Days of Christmas

Twelve days. Twelve games. Twelve branded giveaways. The NBL executed a high-frequency campaign blitz featuring a different sponsor and giveaway each day of their 12 Days of Christmas Games. Promoted across social, email, paid and in their app, this campaign is a turnkey model for seasonal sponsor integration. So good, in fact, that the Adelaide 36ers and Perth Wildcats ran their own team-branded versions and saw similar success. Nothing says goodwill like giving around the holidays.

Bits of Insight
Sponsor campaigns work better as part of an experience rather than a static placement. The NBL did a great job of matching brands with the moment and a wider marketing campaign.

Perth Wildcats - Boom Logistics Hoop Heroes 

Pre-season is one of the best times to experiment with fan experiences, and the Perth Wildcats were eager to launch a new sponsor format with Commercial Sponsors Boom Logistics. The Wildcats launched Tradable Bits’ Hoop Heroes - a “get the most hoops” Arcade game. Fans played for the chance to join a VIP player meet-and-greet experience hosted by Boom Logistics, where top scorers got the exclusive invite. The game marked the sponsor’s first campaign with the Perth Wildcats, and the style of engagement drove awareness, engagement and data for the sponsor at the pre-season stage.

Bits of Insight
Digital to physical campaigns drive deeper engagement and lead qualification for sponsors. They’re a great way to prove partner ROI fast, since you can tie back impressions, participants and eventual conversions to one campaign.

Melbourne United - Guess the Score (Tyrepower)

Another “back to the basics,” this simple prediction campaign was run across every home game, and gave fans the chance to win Tyrepower vouchers just for participating. This season-long campaign also came with one grand prize to end the 2025 season. Keeping it simple, the same questions were asked game over game.

Bits of Insight
The simplest mechanic often wins. Repeating the same question game-over-game makes fan interaction habitual.

Community

Initiatives that build towards something bigger than the game

Community is inextricably linked to fandom. We watch, play and talk about sport because it nudges something foundational within us. The most beloved teams look off the court to give back, and bring everyone in.

NBL x Bunnings Warehouse - Backing Ballers Shootaround

Through their “Backing Ballers” initiative, Bunnings gave young basketball fans the chance to experience an NBL game with their team, and to step onto the court post-game - a moment that felt exclusive, magical and moment-making. Promoted through a dedicated microsite, in-stadium signage, digital channels and a follow-through video series, this activation nailed what many brands miss: the power of earned emotion. The mechanism for entry was simple. The storytelling was honest. And for the kids, it was a meaningful reward tied to their real-world identity as basketball players (and future loyalty as NBL fans). Parents opted in, clubs participated, kids lit up, and Bunnings became more than a retail sponsor - they became part of the family ritual of game day.

Bits of Insight
When a brand helps a fan live out a dream - even briefly - it creates an emotional flywheel that drives advocacy and lifelong affinity. Bunnings knew what impact they wanted to have and targeted their entire marketing initiative around that one special feeling.

Melbourne United - Ozito Local Legends

By inviting fans to nominate everyday heroes from their community to be recognized at every home game,  Melbourne United and Ozito architected community-powered content. Each week, a new Local Legend was spotlighted across social and in-stadium, creating a drumbeat of emotional storytelling and organic reach. The $5,000 grand prize to be awarded to the two most impactful Local Legends added stakes, but the real value was in the community: fans saw themselves, their coaches and their volunteers reflected in the team’s story. And for Ozito, a brand rooted in DIY values - this entire initiative was purpose aligned.

Bits of Insight
Campaigns that turn fans into storytellers stick. Local recognition amplified on bigger channels is a great way to grow and retain affinity for your brand and team.

South East Melbourne Phoenix - Colouring Contest

At the beginning of the season, junior fans received colouring sheets live at games, where they could put their artistry to work. Each physical colouring sheet contained a QR code that parents could scan to submit their kid’s artwork online, which would serve as “one entry” into the competition for a customized jersey. Young fans could submit as many entries as they’d like. This physical-to-digital activation not only turned crayons into entries but kept young fans entertained with a trackable impact on junior engagement. 

Bits of Insight
Blending offline creativity with online submissions is a smart way to capture fan insights and trace engagement. It’s great for uncovering the “family households” in your CRM without losing the magic of the in-venue experience. 

Fan Data

Initiatives that transform collection into conversion

Zero and First-Party data are a central tenet of fan marketing. The goal is to create amazing experiences that help you acquire, analyze and activate fans. The best sports marketers know that any marketing initiative should have a lead-in to a goal closely tied to revenue, which often means data captured. These teams thought beyond engagement to architect a clear, “get this data, activate this data, convert fans from this data” pipeline. 

Perth Wildcats - Win Your Wish List 

Instead of guessing, the Perth Wildcats team created a way to ask fans directly for the games and the ticket types they were most interested in for the season. Fans could indicate interest in future games, flex memberships or single-game tickets for the chance to “win their wishlist.” Each lead captured was tagged in the Wildcats’ CRM for automated follow-ups and smarter segmentation for promotions, reachouts and offers over the season.

Bits of Insight
Capture data = intent. Capture it early. Tag it properly. Then let your funnels and workflows do the heavy lifting.

Adelaide 36ers - Broad-appeal Giveaways

As part of their growth strategy for the 2024/25 season, the Adelaide 36ers launched a series of jersey contests, merch bundles and other giveaways to gather fan data and opt-ins for SMS and email. They structured their forms to be easy to fill out, and by the end of the season, over 80% of their total fan database had opted into additional communication from them. 

Bits of Insight
The prize is the hook, but the form is the strategy. Every entry should either teach you something valuable, round out the information you have on fans, or open more doors to nurture fans in your funnel.

NBL - Summer Shootout

The NBL’s Summer Shootout (January in APAC) was a narrative-driven, league-wide engagement. And it was a fan contest masterclass. Designed to spark interest during school holidays, the campaign fused high-stakes prizing (a $100K fan reward and a $50K club bonus) with a predictor format built around offensive output, not just wins. 

How it worked:
Positioned around “travelling games,” fans picked the NBL team that would win the most points at an away game and the exact score of the winning team - an activation requiring luck, timing and a real connection to league narratives. It launched across podcasts, explainer content, and live-game QR promotions to help participation surge. Despite the more nuanced nature of the competition, over 18K fans played (56% of whom were new fans), leading to a 73% opt-in rate. The Shootout did more than drive impressions - it deepened league storylines and turned a bottom-of-the-ladder matchup into the most-watched game of the campaign. 

Bits of Insight
When fan engagement feels like a natural extension of your storyline - not a bolt-on - you build participation with lasting power. This activation spanned months and had fans checking in on their predictions.

Final Bits of Insight

The teams behind some of the best fan marketing initiatives in the NBL don’t wait to activate around big moments - they create cohesive storylines and moments throughout the season to keep fans engaged. Whether through habit-forming contests, giveaways or community-first activations, they create touchpoints for attention, then turn that attention into additional action. A true inspiration to our team and any fan marketer. 

Let's make your next season your most impactful yet.

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