As part of its new DTC strategy and App reskin, the NBA approached several production companies from different countries, finding the best European talent to produce a hyper-localised, 8-part documentary series about 8 basketball cities across the continent.

The brief was to create cost-effective, high-quality films, with a close attention to authentic narrative and a distinctly creative shooting and editing style. Each feature-length episode is in-language and offers an in-depth and authentic insight into the basketball culture, history, people and passion of that city - telling their stories in a unique way.

We set out with this objective to ensure that the finished content would appeal to the people from these communities and cities who support these teams with all their heart. This series is for the casual, curious and core fans. For people who have never picked up a ball and those who have visited playgrounds across the globe.

This project is about the soul of each city, the people at its heart, from die-hard fans to up-and-coming talent across the continent. The creative idea is a personal love letter to each city and their relationship with basketball, all while discovering untold stories and hidden gems.

The audience feels immersed in the culture, pulled from one corner of the city to the next, following these people, feeling their struggles, triumphs and successes. These stories create connection across cities, countries and continents - bringing the personalities of fans, players, teams and communities to life, crossing language and geographical barriers.

By telling often underrepresented stories of female teams and disabled athletes, giving space to different age groups, and highlighting the origin stories of worldwide basketball stars such as Evan Fournier, Šarūnas Marčiulionis and Furkan Korkmaz, we hope that this series can inspire a new generation of kids to follow their dreams.

The cities were chosen from key markets in EME, in the home countries of some of the biggest current NBA players. Some of the teams portrayed in the series, like the New York Knicks, are the most followed NBA franchises on the continent.

The target audience of core, casual and curious fans, inspired us to include cultural sections about each city to build a picture of the basketball scene and the context in which it developed, so they can learn about the unique cultures of this ubiquitous sport and visit these cities to play, eat, dance and enjoy.

We worked closely with local business owners, fans, historians and journalists to gain insight and access to some fantastic stories and locations.

The success of this series is also the result of multiple production agencies across Europe working together to research, write and shoot hundreds of hours of interview and b-roll footage.

This series sits on the Feature page of the NBA app. On release, Hoop Cities was the lead NBA content series globally. It has been picked up by several NBA media partners in the region and also Sky Sports UK, despite there not being a UK-based episode.

There have been screenings for local teams and fans with 6000 people in attendance. The series was screened at the NBA Abu Dhabi Games 2022 and the Paris episode was aired on beIN France before the NBA Paris Game 2023.

The promotional campaign on social media involved over 100 contributors - protagonists, celebrities, teams, leagues, federations and local influencers. Apart from basketball fans, music lovers (10%), food and cooking (10%), and multimedia entertainment (9%) had the highest click-through rate.

There have been 100+ pieces of media coverage, 109 million impressions, 1.7 million engagements and over 35 million views on the NBA social channels.