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Friday, March 03, 2023
With an ode to Black Broadway at an NBA game, Broadway reaches an untapped audience: sports fans
Broadway News: Eight weeks ago, Broadway marketer Whitney Britt of the brand partnership group Two Dog Circus got a text from the Brooklyn Nets. As part of the NBA team’s Black History Month commemoration, they were planning to host a themed night for each of the seven home games in the month of February.
3 comments:
Jasper
said...
Like the article mentioned, in order to survive, Broadway (and the theater industry in general) needs to reach out to a larger audience and find new ways of marketing to people. By collaborating on this game, many productions were able to reach a previously unreachable audience. They were able to garner interest from sports fans who may be interested in Broadway and theater if they only give it a try. On top of this important new direction in outside marketing, this collaboration was also a great way to celebrate black history on Broadway. Many black performers and others involved in theater had the opportunity to celebrate their skills and get another gig. Many shows that are important to the history of Black Broadway had the opportunity to be celebrated, marketed, and advertised. This was an entirely new concept to the modern version of the theater industry. In the future, I hope we find even more new ways to break the mold.
I never would have thought that Broadway would start to tap into sports fans as customers, but it makes sense. It’s really cool to see this collaboration and sort of crossover between Broadway theater and basketball, it’s kind of unexpected. Hopefully, this proves to be successful; I’m excited to see if it will be. And, of course, this is a very fitting way to celebrate Black History month. In a sense, I feel like you can put a ton of shows on Broadway about black history but at the end of the day, there are so many people who aren’t really interested in theater or don’t go; long story short my point is that this is a good way to reach an audience that hasn’t been reached by theater yet. I hope that in the future we can see more partnership between drama and sports, and hopefully it continues to be popular.
Who knew there could be such an epic crossover? This event is legendary and more people need to be writing about this! I love how Whiney Britt was able to bring in more than just a few Broadway stars and make this an event for Broadway and Nets fans that they will remember for years to come. There is enormous potential for future collaborations, and I think events like this help to reduce the snooty notion that Broadway has carried for decades. While this collaboration was initiated by the Nets senior director of entertainment Criscia Long, I wonder how Broadway can initiate these types of events. Audience development, which includes outreach to new audiences, is critical for the health of the theatre industry. Exposing audiences not familiar with Broadway is key. And very likely fun for the Nets audience. Britt has an amusing comparison of the Nets having multiple opening nights in one month and that the game, on some level, is theatrical. Broadway is serious, but it is also joyful and fun. Sometimes at this school I feel like we forget it can be both.
3 comments:
Like the article mentioned, in order to survive, Broadway (and the theater industry in general) needs to reach out to a larger audience and find new ways of marketing to people. By collaborating on this game, many productions were able to reach a previously unreachable audience. They were able to garner interest from sports fans who may be interested in Broadway and theater if they only give it a try. On top of this important new direction in outside marketing, this collaboration was also a great way to celebrate black history on Broadway. Many black performers and others involved in theater had the opportunity to celebrate their skills and get another gig. Many shows that are important to the history of Black Broadway had the opportunity to be celebrated, marketed, and advertised. This was an entirely new concept to the modern version of the theater industry. In the future, I hope we find even more new ways to break the mold.
I never would have thought that Broadway would start to tap into sports fans as customers, but it makes sense. It’s really cool to see this collaboration and sort of crossover between Broadway theater and basketball, it’s kind of unexpected. Hopefully, this proves to be successful; I’m excited to see if it will be. And, of course, this is a very fitting way to celebrate Black History month. In a sense, I feel like you can put a ton of shows on Broadway about black history but at the end of the day, there are so many people who aren’t really interested in theater or don’t go; long story short my point is that this is a good way to reach an audience that hasn’t been reached by theater yet. I hope that in the future we can see more partnership between drama and sports, and hopefully it continues to be popular.
Who knew there could be such an epic crossover? This event is legendary and more people need to be writing about this! I love how Whiney Britt was able to bring in more than just a few Broadway stars and make this an event for Broadway and Nets fans that they will remember for years to come. There is enormous potential for future collaborations, and I think events like this help to reduce the snooty notion that Broadway has carried for decades. While this collaboration was initiated by the Nets senior director of entertainment Criscia Long, I wonder how Broadway can initiate these types of events. Audience development, which includes outreach to new audiences, is critical for the health of the theatre industry. Exposing audiences not familiar with Broadway is key. And very likely fun for the Nets audience.
Britt has an amusing comparison of the Nets having multiple opening nights in one month and that the game, on some level, is theatrical. Broadway is serious, but it is also joyful and fun. Sometimes at this school I feel like we forget it can be both.
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