Sports and console gaming: An unorthodox sports marketing strategy

The game which sparked my love for basketball: EA Sports NBA live 2003.

So I was around 7 years old when my brother bought a 2 cd-rom set of sports games in which one cd contained only cricket related games and the other one had demo versions of different sporting games like NBA, Madden, NHL, etc.

As a 7-year-old, wandering in his own clueless world, I started playing NBA Live 2003 demo, which only had 1 quarter of play of the Lakers (Los Angeles) and the Nets (New Jersey) and instantly fell in love with the pixelated game. I was mesmerized by the plays, shooting, dunks, blocks, and everything that had to do with basketball. Upon doing some research on the game of basketball, I found more about Shaq, Kobe, and the rich decorated lakers history. It was ever since then, I developed an interest in the game of basketball and NBA in particular.

To this very day in 2017, I still play NBA live 2003 on my laptop. Even though with the development of technology and games, 2k sports and EA have completely changed the scenario of NBA games on various gaming platforms, I'm still deeply attached to this game because it was what sparked my love for basketball.

I believe console gaming is a huge platform for sports marketing as the younger generation spend a lot of time playing console games, especially EA Sports FIFA. Many casual gaming players develop a liking for sports by playing games on different consoles and like me, being mesmerized by it, go for further searches on those sports. Console gaming also promotes a deeper understanding of the sport and helps form strategies for unbeatable plays which can be used in real life as well.

Console gaming should be taken very seriously for targeting the sports fanatic audiences