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In the early 1980s, the National Basketball Association (NBA) faced a crisis. Television ratings were plummetingthe 1981 NBA finals were among the lowest of all time. Spurred by failing franchises, low game attendance, and declining corporate sponsorships, the leagues cultural relevance in the United States waned. Then in 1984, the league responded with a structural shift that would change the culture of sports for decades to come. We came together with the collective bargaining agreement where the players and the owners would work together to grow the game and expand the game and the values that we established in the Players Association, says NBA legend and current NBA TV analyst Isiah Thomas. The sacrifice that you had to make was you had to extend yourself to the fan base. You have to extend yourself to the media. You have to give access. This strategic move set off a basketball renaissance that reconfigured the leagues business for the modern era. Today the NBA, valued at over $160 billion, finds itself at another inflection point. More people are viewing programming on streaming platforms than on traditional television. Toward the end of 2024, the leagues ratings dipped by 19% in its early season. Coming into this current season, the NBA recalibrated its media strategy by entering new partnerships with NBCUniversal and streaming platform Amazon Prime. Within the first month of this season, the NBAs viewership rebounded, drawing more than 60 million viewers. Now, the NBA is preparing to future-proof itself with its next strategic bet: intentionally designing its global fandom as it moves toward the launch of NBA Europe. [Photo: NBAE] Why Now? As the NBA deepens its push into Europe, the league is testing how to design a global fan experience tailored to the continents growing audience. According to the league, basketball is the fastest-growing sport in Europe, with more than 270 million fans across the continent. Despite Europeans not having the same level of access to NBA games and content via traditional media, last season was the NBAs most-viewed ever across its social and digital channels in Europe, generating more than one billion views across 11 localized accounts in seven languages. This season, European viewership of league games and content via NBA League Pass increased by over 37% year-over-year. We see enormous opportunity for basketball in Europe, says Leah MacNab, NBA senior vice president, head of International Strategy & Operations. Despite that momentum, there is a significant gap between the level of interest in basketball and the sports untapped potential for fans, players, teams, cities, and overall commercial development across Europe. We believe a new league in Europeworking in partnership with FIBA [the International Basketball Federation]would benefit fans, players, and the broader basketball ecosystem. While the NBA has focused on growing the game internationally for four decades, this moment is more deliberate. As the league explores establishing its own European league, it selected Berlin and London as host cities for this years regular season games. Basketball is the fastest-growing sport in these cities and the NBA is the continents most popular league. On January 15 and 18, the Orlando Magic took on the Memphis Grizzlies, matchups that marked the ninety-eighth and ninety-ninth NBA games played in Europe. The last time the NBA brought a game to London was in 2019, and the leagues approach this year reflects a systems-level strategy aimed at testing experiences, engaging fans, and building a long-term U.K. and European audience. [Photo: NBAE] Inside NBA House London Unlike the 2019 London Game, the NBA made significant investments in transforming Magazine London, a 215,214-square-foot event and cultural venue, into its NBA House experience. According to Laura Pinnell, NBA’s Europe & Middle East vice president, head of Consumer, the NBA House has evolved from a regional activation into a signature component of the leagues Global Games footprint and international fan engagement efforts. Located just a short walk from the O2 arena, the site for the Orlando Magic versus Memphis Grizzlies matchup, the NBA House pop-up served as part fan zone, part prototype for the league to experiment with how fans experience the NBA beyond the game itself. Going into this three-day, immersive, 17,000 people registered with the league for the experience, with more than 50,000 fans registering for NBA House tickets across Berlin and London. [Photo: NBAE] We recognize that most fans globally wont have the opportunity to attend an NBA game in person, explains Pinnell. Free-to-attend activations like NBA House provide accessible ways for fans to immerse themselves in the NBA and feel connected to the league. As visitors entered Londons NBA House, they were greeted by a lfe-size league logo where they could snap photos. Moving through the venue, they encountered activations split across two main areas: the Creator Studio and the Court. According to Pinnell, the Creator Studio is a new format that debuted at the NBA London Game. [Photo: NBAE] Creators have long been an important part of the NBA ecosystem, and their connection with our global fan base has only grown in recent years, says Pinnel. NBA House felt like the perfect setting to bring these worlds together and offer a unique, elevated experience for fans. Sponsored by Experience Abu Dhabi, the Creator Studio featured several activations that allowed fans to step into the role of an NBA player. These included interactive basketball shooting games, a Foot Lockerbacked activation where fans could film their own tunnel walkstyle entrance, a pop-up NBA Store, and creator-led conversations featuring players from the Orlando Magic among other guests. [Photo: NBAE] As fans entered the Court section of the house, they encountered sponsors like Tissot and 23 other brands, plus a range of activations and competitions: a full basketball court hosting clinics led by legends Isiah Thomas and Tony Parker, a three-point contest, and a dunk contest featuring a special appearance by Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant. The investment that has gone into this, the presence of partners that are in this space, the amount of freebies, competitions and coaching clinics were running, it is a huge investment, says James Sherwood-Smith, a U.K.-based freelance presenter and NBA House London host who works in fan engagement across other sports like football and F1. Its a complete expense whereas other sports have to balance the books, the NBA is looking to make their mark, and in a generation’s time, they can start to think about the monetization of it. NBA London Game Day By the third and final day, fans lined up early to access the NBA House hours before the games tipoff. Meanwhile, in the sold-out arena, the energy was palpable. The NBA views its overseas games as an experiment for how a new fanbase might want to interact with the league. An international game looks like an NBA game in the U.S but feels different because its a novel experience for fans. The NBA team curated local celebrity talent like Premier League star Declan Rice and introduced NBA legends (a mix of American and European former players). In between gameplay, the league hosted fan competitions, crowd engagement activities, and prize giveaways to test how fans respond to various activities and environments. The goal is to create hyper-localized NBA experiences that will deepen fans connections to the league. So far, it seems to be working. According to Prime, the NBA London Game 2026 viewership was up 90% in comparison to the 2019 London game. [Photo: NBAE] NBA Europe Expansion The NBAs commitment to building its global fandom in the U.K. and Europe through in-person experiences feeds into its larger goal of building a European league. Currently, the NBA operates as a closed league, meaning it comprises a fixed number of 30 teams each season unless the league approves entry of additional teams. In contrast, many international sports leagues, like professional soccer leagues, operate on an open model. This means teams within an open league can either be promoted to a higher league or relegated to a lower league based on performance. In partnership with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the NBA envisions a semi-open league or a hybrid approach with its expansion. The NBA Europe League would be comprised of 14 to 16 teams with 10 to 12 permanent franchises and four to six open spots available for any FIBA-affiliated domestic league in Europe to qualify for annually based on merit. The leagues position is that teams participating in the EuroLeague would not be eligible for participation in NBA Europe simultaneously. To create these teams, the league intends to explore three routes including: existing basketball teams, existing football clubs like those in the Premier League with an interest in expanding to basketball, and ownership groups keen on creating a new team from scratch. Despite its intentions to complement the current European basketball ecosystem as well as maximize competitive and commercial potential of basketball in Europe, the NBA has drawn criticism from some European stakeholders and policymakers. These critics warn that the NBA could supplant local culture, benefit only commercially successful clubs, and ultimately stifle competition. While current and former NBA players largely support its expansion, some players have a more measured stance. I think theres a lot of untapped potential, says Franz Wagner, Orlando Magic star and German native. As long as you keep the tradition of European basketball here and not change the structure of how it works and lean into making it a bigger sport, it can only be positive for the U.K. and, and Europe as a whole. Wagner says there are certain aspects of European basketball culture that are important to maintain as an NBA Europe league emerges. The fan culture, the tradition of the clubs that have made up European basketball and shaped the landscape for a long time, Wagner says. Theyve developed these fan bases over a bunch of years and ave such great history, they should still be intact. That’s a big part of what drives viewership and also why we have great atmospheres and gyms over here. [And] making sure that teams invest in their youth development. While Wagner emphasizes maintaining European tradition and fan culture, others are optimistic that the NBA will build a league that complements the existing ecosystem. When there’s tradition, there’s always going to be people who[will] be critical to change, says former Chicago Bulls star and host of travel series NOMAD Joakim Noah. The NBA is great at marketing, great at branding, and I think it’s just a matter of time before it’s welcomed with open arms. Recent reports indicate that the market may already be opening its arms to the NBA. Following the London matchup, the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver convened a meeting with about 250 people, including potential brand partners Nike and Amazon and funders like KKR, Rothschild, and Blackstone. Representatives from Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, two soccer clubs that also have basketball teams, alongside clubs from Italy, Greece, and Germany were also present, suggesting that these clubs are moving beyond signaling initial interest in potential NBA Europe. [Photo: NBAE] Looking Ahead The league will continue building its global brand beyond Europe with the upcoming 2026 NBA All-Star game, its longstanding global showcase for fans, media, and partners. According to the NBA, this seasons opening-night rosters featured 71 European players, including the leagues top players like Greeces Giannis Antetokounmpo, Serbias Nikola Jokić, Slovenias Luka Dončić, and Frances Victor Wembanyama. These players are part of the starting five for this years All-Star Game, which the league revamped for the first time as a U.S. v. World format. The new U.S. vs. World All-Star format highlights that the level of international talent in the NBA is at an alltime high, which is driving even greater interest and growth across Europe and around the world, says the NBAs MacNab. This record level of talent and engagement with basketball and the NBA is a key reason why we think a new league in Europe could be the next frontier for basketball on the continent. As the NBA pushes its international strategy forward, viewership among American and global audiences will evolve alongside it.I do believe that what we are seeing and what the fans want to see, [its] not a coincidence, says NBA Hall of Famer and current NBC analyst Carmelo Anthony. This is NBCs first chance to introduce that side of things earlier than expected. This is the jumpstart to let people know this is what’s to come and get used to seeing this global basketball brand . . . It’s all part of the plan.
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E-Commerce
America is on the cusp of its first major winter storm of the new year. Dubbed Winter Storm Fern, the storm is expected to begin today and last until at least Monday. As Fast Company previously reported, the noreaster is expected to affect as many as 230 million Americans as it moves from the Southwest to the Mid-Atlantic states, then continues eastward toward New England. The storm’s progression over 72 hours is expected to dump snow and ice on significant portions of the country, with major cities including St. Louis, Chicago, Memphis, Nashville, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. expected to receive significant accumulation. The severity of Winter Storm Fern has led many states to already declare emergencies before the bad weather has even hit. Residents across the country have been stocking up on food for days, as well as buying winter storm supplies like shovels and rock salt. Airlines are also warning travelers to expect delays and cancellations. Given the potential impact, many U.S. carriers have already said they will waive change fees or fare differences if travelers want to change their travel plans ahead of time. 2 maps show Winter Storm Ferns expected path The first major winter storm of 2026 wont hit most of America all at once. It is expected to begin in the Southwest on Friday and slowly move northeastward across the country over the following days. Exactly when it hits you depends on where you are along the storm’s projected path. If you want to see when experts think the storm is most likely to hit your area, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has two excellent sets of maps that show the storm’s current projected path. [Map: NOAA/NWS/NCEP] The first map is the agencys National Forecast Chart. This map forecasts the countrys weather for the next three days. While the map will change as new data is aggregated, at the time of this writing, the map shows that today, freezing rain and mixed precipitation will begin in the Southwest, in states including Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Snowfall is expected from Wyoming to western Missouri. But Saturday and Sunday are the days that most of America will be hit hard, according to the maps. On Saturday, snow, a wintry mix, or freezing rain is expected to occur in states ranging from Arizona to Philadelphia. On Sunday, the storm is expected to cover the remainder of the northeastern United States. [Map: NOAA/NWS/NCEP] But just how impactful the winter storm weather will be varies by location. And its predicted impact is shown in another NOAA map, called the Winter Weather Forecasts, which displays the Probabilistic Winter Storm Severity Index (WSSI-P). This index displays a range of winter weather impact probabilities over a geographic area, NOAA states. The impacts are shown via a color-coded system with darker colors signifying a greater chance of impact. Currently, the Winter Weather Forecasts map shows that Saturday and Sunday will bring a 90% chance or greater of significant impact from the winter storm. On Saturday, the chance of impact is greatest in states including Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. On Sunday, the chance of impact is greatest in states including North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, and more.
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E-Commerce
In the world of earnings reports and pitch decks, the ultimate goal of our current AI boom is usually called something like artificial general intelligence (AGI), superintelligence, orif you’re really nerdyrecursive self-improving AI. But in the real world, we’re all just looking for the Enterprise computer: a digital assistant you can talk to that doesn’t just fully understand you, but can do things for you instantly. The last couple of months have seen a lot of progress on this front. While I was at CES, I attended Lenovo’s keynote, which unveiled Qira, an always-on AI that will be built into its devices going forward. As I wrote about at The Media Copilot, the innovation with Qira is that the assistant is now an “orchestrator of agents,” seamlessly passing off the user to other services like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or others, depending on the user’s request. The reason a device maker like Lenovo can do that is because it doesn’t compete with those servicesQira is a facilitator, not a do-everything AI service. It appears Apple has also finally woken up to that strategy now that it’s announced a multi-year deal to integrate Googles Gemini models into a revamped Siri later this year. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/media-copilot.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/fe289316-bc4f-44ef-96bf-148b3d8578c1_1440x1440.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to The Media Copilot\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for The Media Copilot. To learn more visit \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/\u0022\u003Emediacopilot.substack.com\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453847,"imageMobileId":91453848,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Apple has colossally overpromised and underdelivered on AI over the past two years, partly because of its reluctance to rely on partners for parts of its AI experience. Now that there’s more clarity on the orchestrator visionand on how AIs talk to each otherit looks like we’re past concerns over empowering competitors. Assistants evolve into agents Into all this come agentic tools like Claude Code and Claude Coworker. The buzz around these tools in the AI world has been insane, and a big part of the reason is they can do much more than code and build websites. They are effectively agents, able to take instructions, turn them into plans, and then execute on them, often with minimal guidance from the user. Whether it lives in the OS (Qira/Siri) or in a desktop app (Cowork), the effect is the same: decision-making moves closer to the interface people actually use. Several people on X say the experience using Coworker is closer to working with a colleague rather than prompting an AI. But there are new worries, too: Anthropic is warning users about safety riskslike unclear instructions leading to file deletionbecause thats what happens when the model can act, not just talk. All this is pointing in the same direction. Sometime soon, it seems likely that a significant and growing amount of device interactions will be essentially telling agents what to do. No apps, no browserjust the answer, output, or outcome you were looking for. It’s the Enterprise computer, just not on the bridge of a starship but in millions of pockets worldwide. There are huge implications for the media, brands, and other content providers. In my Qira piece, I talked about how the battle for context is going to play out in the information space in the coming year, but agent-based work will also have an effect on information-based work itself, especially journalism. Embedding an agentessentially a decision-making computerinto your workspace is potentially a huge accelerant, but it poses difficult questions around attribution, access, and how it treats sensitive data. Auditability in the agent era Sounds serious, and there’s a simple solution to those concerns: don’t use it. But that’s not a strategy. Like any tool, those who learn it, use it, and master it will have an advantage over those who don’t. As agentic work grows in popularity, the workplaces that figure out how to implement it safely and securely will have the best chance of success. The media is particularly challenged, though, since information is their business. We’ve already seen this play out with regard to hallucinations. The propensity of AI systems to make things up out of the blue continues to persist, and it keeps many newsrooms from adopting AI, at least in any way that touches content. The danger of a workplace agent is more insidious. The AI isn’t creating content per se, but it is making decisions such as what information sources to use, what services to help with a task, and what company knowledge to apply to any specific request. But if an agent is going to make decisions in a newsroom, it cant be a black box. Even without the AI making a mistake per se, the question of how the AI makes its decisions matters. Look at the corollary in search: When Google made a deal with Reddit, which led to Reddit appearing at the top of many more search results. That unquestionably had an influence on where people got their information, especially since Google is an effective monopoly on search. Well, a device or workplace agent will have a similar monopoly. How an agent goes down a tree of decisions can’t be a black box. Certainly, steering workers toward sanctioned services and company software is an obvious first step. Following style guides and company policy in the actions it takes is another. But it’s in the parts of workflows that aren’t covered by that where things get strange. This isn’t just about getting informationit’s about the context it relies on when taing action. The need for AI governance While actions need to be seamless to the user, there needs to be an auditable paper trail for them. How the agent gets context from the web, and from which services, should be clear and traceable. When asked, in plain language, why it took a specific action, there should be a rabbit hole the user can go down if they wish, along with a method to correct any problems in its thinking (including bias). Disclaimers won’t cut it on agentstraining how to both use them and audit your own use, should be standard. In other words, governance matters. Agents like Qira and Claude Coworker might deliver on the dream of true AI assistants. But the potential they promise to unlock requires an equal amount of deference. If AI has shown anything over the past few years, it’s that it can do incredible things, but it can’t be trusted to always get it right. For organizations to truly advance into the agent era, they’ll need to adopt an old adage: trust, but verify. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/media-copilot.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/fe289316-bc4f-44ef-96bf-148b3d8578c1_1440x1440.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to The Media Copilot\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for The Media Copilot. To learn more visit \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/\u0022\u003Emediacopilot.substack.com\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453847,"imageMobileId":91453848,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
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