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For decades, tuning into a sporting event at home involved watching a traditional broadcast on your TV. These days, however, many viewers arent just watching on their TVtheyve got the game streaming right to their phones. After more than two decades, NBC and the NBA have revived their partnership just in time to face this new challenge. In a media landscape where fans consume sports across traditional broadcasts, streaming platforms, and mobile devices, the question is no longer about how to televise the game, but how to design an experience that cultivates the leagues next generation of stars, its culture, and fandom while honoring the nostalgia that once defined the NBA on NBC.[Image: courtesy NBCUniversal]Our job is to document and cover the game and really celebrate the game, says Pierre Moosa, coordinating producer for NBC Sports. That was what we used to do back in the time when we had the NBA on NBC.Celebrating the game has become more complex as sports fans viewing habits are increasingly fragmented. The consumption of sports is always evolving, Moosa says. Whether its social media, digital, social, streaming, we need to meet the viewer [where they are]. To solve this, the NBA and NBCin concert with Peacock, NBCs streaming platformare launching a new mobile-first feature called Courtside Live. Its designed to function alongside traditional broadcast and gives Peacock viewers an unprecedented degree of production control by allowing them to swipe between multiple camera angles in real time, creating a more intimate experience of games.The Design Challenge In recent years mobile has become increasingly important to the fan experience. I always held my phone horizontally, Moosa says. People now hold their phone vertically to watch videos.This behavioral change started influencing Peacocks overall strategy back in 2024, when it launched its Cant Miss Highlights feature, which brought vertical video to the Peacock app for the first time. Vertical video laid the foundation and helped inform us as we were coming up with Courtside Live, says Jim Denney, NBCUs chief product officer, describing a process of experimentation in the lead-up to launching the product.According to Denney, after NBC confirmed its new partnership agreement with the NBA, a cross-functional team got to work brainstorming ideas for a next-gen fan viewing experience. Its really sitting down and starting from the fan and working backwards, he says. [Image: courtesy NBCUniversal]One of the ideas that came up was what if we could actually create the experience of being courtsidewhat would that feel like? says John Jelley, SVP of product and user experience for Peacock and global streaming at NBCUniversal. When you go to a game, you are looking around, you are seeing the coaches, heres the athletes coming on, heres the teams lined up. What if we could actually create the experience a fan [has] live but as part of the Peacock product experience? The product team presented the idea of a feature that allowed fans to flip through different camera views during a live matchup, both on their phone and TV. Denney says viewers who use multiple devices to watch NBA content tend to be more engaged, noting, We wanted a cross-section of things that we would do [well] both on TV and on mobile devices.A major learning that came from the 2024 Paris Olympics broadcast is that there are two types of fans: casual and avid. In addition to providing a quality main broadcast, NBC and Peacock want to appeal to both audience segments by offering new ways to experience the action. They also found that fans who choose to watch events in multiple views simultaneously prefer to stay in that view. Courtside Live builds on that insight by re-creating the multi-view experience for mobile devices.If you think about your mobile experience, you are swiping up and down through vertical videos, and moving between different apps, Jelley says. What we see in that behavior is that fans want the option to [say] Oh, Im watching the game, theres something great happening, I wonder if I could understand a bit more about that player or maybe catch up on some moment that happened earlier or see how the celebrities in the stands are reacting. He says making the right videos easily accessible to viewers created a net-new experience.We thought there was a real opportunity to do something completely new with Courtside, which was to bring that to everyones phones and everyones TVs through multi-view in a way that really hadnt ever been done before, Jelley explains. Designing Courtside LiveThe team began testing Courtside Live during NBA Summer League games at Golden State in July 2025 and quickly realized a big hurdle to clear involved translating horizontally captured video into a vertical format that could live on mobile phones. One of the things you have to do with Courtside Live and any vertical video is often you are shooting a scene with a TV camera, which is a 16-by-9 horizontal feed, Denney says. One of the concepts that we had was following [an individual] player [on the court], my understanding is the production team actually had a camera taped off [at] two edges so that the cameraman could actually keep somebody in view.In that instance, the production team initially used a robo-camera that wasnt fit to capture the necessary angles. They revisited discussions with the vendor and explored options with more padding to identify the most suitable camera.Through that partnership with production, we found ways to make sure the users see exactly the right element, Jelley says. We employed some Japanese technology that allows the operators to make sure theyre delivering these live feeds [and] they can make sure theyre focused on the elements that are most interesting. . . . Were using a variety of technologies to make sure that the user is getting the best possible experience in that vertical format.Another UX pain point was navigation. When Peacock users watch live sporting events on their mobile phones, theyre initially presented with the main traditional broadcast in landscape view. Below that main broadcast view, Jelley explains, users will now find a medley of game views. The team designed the interface with one-handed use in mind, making standard interactions, like swiping through camera angles onmobile devices, intuitive. If you think about your phone and how you hold your phone, you have to be able to very easily navigate around this experience using just your thumb, Jelley says. We really thought about how we could make it easy to switch between these different angles very intuitively, and then use the picture-in-picture functionality that we know users love using on their phone.Jelley recognizes the paradox Peacock is balancing: While users want more choice, they dont want to feel overwhelmed. His teams testing focused predominantly on usability. To simplify navigation, the team used AI to design iconography that clearly communicates to viewers the different camera angles available. And to help viewers transition seamlessly between the main broadcast and alternative views without losing their place, the product team tweaked the styling of the main icon to guide viewers back to their original point of view. The big design constraint really was doing that on a small screen [because] you dont have a lot of real estate, Jelley admits. You dont want things to get in the way of the video, but you want to make it very easy to navigate. And I think the design we came up with really lands that well. Scalability and Repurposing Courtside Live is launching in earnest during the 75th NBA All-Star Game hosted at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. In preparation, the teams spent five days rehearsing for the three-day slate of All-Star events, including the Celebrity Game, Rising Stars, All-Star Saturdays three-point and dunk contests, and Sundays new U.S.-vs.-World format.According to Paul Benedict, the NBAs SVP of broadcasting and content management, the action will be captured by 50-plus cameras, more than 20 super-slow-motion cameras, and a flying cable camera. To achieve crisp, cinematic storytelling, Benedict says the production centers on providing unique access typically reserved for All-Star week.What makes Courtside Live so special is those cameras are literally on the scores table, giving you that experience, Moosa says. I may never be able to sit courtside, but I can grab my phone and be able to see what that camera angle looks like.While these angles will be available via Peacock on mobile devices, Moosa notes that the traditional broadcast will also benefit from the Courtside Live feature. So the ISO camera and the courtside cameras are going [to be] intertwined into the normal, traditional broadcast, he says. Learning through Experimentation The NBC and Peacock teams are enthusiastic about what theyll learn from their collaboration on this feature and its debut this weekend. Well be tracking each one of these [angles] and seeing how much people watch, how long in one view, how often do they come back, Jelley says. A lot of the goal of the experiences we built in mobile is about frequency, because we know that with your phone, you have it all the time. Seeing how frequently [users] come back to [the] experience is a great sign of how compelling it is and how much it becomes a part of peoples habits of watching. In addition to tracking each camera angle, Jelley and his team plan to track the percentage of mobile users who engage with Courtside Live, aiming to achieve a similar level of success as they did with the Cant Miss Highlights feature.NBC and Peacock already have an early signal of the features potential because the technology is being employed for its current Winter Olympics coverage. While initially designed for the NBA, their Olympics partner applied it to hockey and figure skating, giving fans unique access to moments like the kiss and cry area, where skaters wait with their coaches for scores. This suggests the feature can scale beyond basketball to other live event experiences.You can imagine how this could apply to other events, whether thats some of our entertainment events like the Macys Thanksgiving Day parade [or] anywhere where we have lots of different angles or even some of our other other shows, Jelley says. This will be a conversation. If this works well, how can we extend it?
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Since I was old enough to vote in presidential elections, Ive heard plenty of grumbling across the political spectrum about moving to Canada if one candidate or another wins. And since I have been a full-time worker, I have also been party to a number of pie-in-the-sky conversations about the expat potential of retiring to Barcelona; Buenos Aires, Argentina; or Bangkok. But conversations about leaving the United States have felt a little different over the last couple of years. It started when several of my parents contemporaries actually retired abroad, rather than just thinking about it. Then multiple friends picked up stakeswhich included selling houses and cars and uprooting high-school aged kidssimply to relocate away from America. Its not just my circle of friends and acquaintances, either. CS Global Partners found a 102.4% jump in U.S. expatriation in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the last quarter of 2024although that jump only represents an estimated 1,285 individuals in real numbers. As easy as it is to say youd like to become an American expat living it up in another country, the reality isnt necessarily that simple. I spoke to two people who have moved away from the U.S. about the hidden costs of emigration. Infrastructure matters Valerie Roseborough retired to Panama when she exited her career in sales and marketing. She first got the expat itch during COVID-19. In my early career, I had done a lot of solo international traveling, she says. Seeing so much of the world go through the same thing at one time reminded me of how connected I had once felt to the rest of the world. That convinced Roseborough to start traveling morewith retirement in the back of her mind. She spent six months in Mexico and realized it was not her place. The infrastructure wasnt going to work for me, Roseborough says. It’s a large country and sort of challenging to move about from state to state and place to place. Once Panama presented itself as an option, with its large international airport and direct flights to North America, as well as generous discounts to retirees, Roseborough realized it was an ideal spot for her second act, as an expat. Travel to and from her home in the Washington, D.C. area makes it possible to stay closely connected with her children. But she also recognizes that her location in the States as she was planning the move also helped make the process easier. I was fortunate in that I was relocating from Washington, D.C, which has a Panamanian consulate and embassy, she says. I just had to make an appointment and show up with the necessary documents. If you dont live in an area with a nearby embassy or consulate for the country you want to emigrate to, you may have to work through the State Department and handle everything via mail. Prepare for taxes Rian Chandler-Dovis and her husband decided to immigrate to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, from Virginia several years ago. We got down here, and we were like, we love this place, she says. What is it going to take to immigrate here? Mexico has a relatively flexible immigration policy, in part because the government has instituted a 16% sales tax across the board, Chandler-Dovis explains. This means immigrants to Mexico dont necessarily have onerous income requirements, because even if youre not paying income tax in Mexico, the 16% sales tax contributes massively to the economy. But if you are living abroad and maintaining an American residency, that can complicate your income tax situation. Chandler-Doviss husband now earns income in Mexico, while she owns a business that is registered in the United States. They pay income tax in Mexico, but found that maintaining their residence in Virginia would change their tax status in ways that would complicate matters too much. For tax purposes. Virginia is what you call a sticky state, Chandler-Dovis says. There are four other so-called sticky states: California, New Mexico, New York, and South Carolina. Each of these states consider individuals to still be tax residents even after moving abroad, and expects them to keep filing state tax returns and paying state taxes. These states have also been known to levy penalties for noncompliance to any émigré foolish enough to think that moving to another country would cut any necessary tax ties to their former home. Not all costs are financial Unfortunately, giving up their Virginia residency has a serious cost for Chandler-Dovis and her husband. Without an address in America, they cant vote in U.S. elections. In order to stay registered to vote, you have to have a U.S. address, Chandler-Dovis says. And the law says that if you move out of the country, your voter registration must reflect your last U.S. address. This can be a serious catch-22 for Americans living abroad, especially those who are considering a move for political reasons. You may be stuck deciding between a nightmare of a tax scenario if you live in a sticky state or the ability to vote in American elections. New opportunities, new problems Living abroad can be a dream, an adventure, or an escape. But it will never be exactly what you expect, and it will always have hidden costs that you cant possibly anticipate. Specifically, its important to take the infrastructure of both your destination and your current situation into account. Taking a trial run in your potential home, as Valerie Roseborough did in Mexico, can help a prospective expat determine if it will work. Her six months in Mexico made it clear that the Mexican infrastructure wasnt a good fit and led her to Panama, which is perfect for her retirement. She also recognized that living in Washington, D.C. made applying for her visa much easier because of her proximity to the Panamanian consulate and embassy. If you arent as fortunate, expect the process to take longer. Taxes will continue to be a headache no matter where in the world you live. While income may be less important to some countries, that does not necessarily mean you wont need to worry about how your tax situation will affect your finances, immigration status, and residency. Additionally, taxes may affect an expat’s ability to maintain residencyand the ability to votein America. Make sure you consider all those kinds of nonfinancial costs before you make any decisions about moving.
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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. During the pandemic housing boom, we saw red-hot housing demand quickly absorb much of the available slack in the housing market. Back in 2021, active housing inventory for sale, unsold completed new builds, and available lot supply all plunged to historic lows. But ever since the pandemic housing boom fizzled out in mid-2022, housing slack has been building back up in the housing marketespecially in certain pockets of the Sun Belt. Look no further than Zondas New Home Lot Supply Index, which measures lot supply based on the number of single-family vacant developed lots and the rate at which those lots are absorbed via housing starts. A higher index value indicates a greater supply of single-family vacant developed lots, while a lower index value indicates a tighter lot supply/new construction market. That index reading for Q4 2025 climbed to 81.6well above the all-time low of 35.8 set at the height of the pandemic housing boom in Q2 2022, when builders were buying as much entitled land as they could find. According to Zonda, homebuilder lot supply loosened/rose in 28 of the 30 major metro-area housing markets tracked over the past 12 months. Housing markets like Austin, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, L.A., Seattle, and Jacksonville, Florida, experienced some of the most significant year-over-year loosening of lot supply. That said, despite an uptick in available lots in some markets on a year-over-year basis, around half of major housing markets are still what Zonda considers significantly undersupplied. In fact, Zonda now considers Austin and Denver metro-area housing markets as significantly oversupplied. Zondas New Home Lot Supply Index has five groupings: Significantly oversupplied = 125 score or higher Sightly oversupplied = 115-124 score Appropriately supplied = 85-114 score Slightly undersupplied = 75-84 score Significantly undersupplied = 74 score or lower One year ago, just three major metro-area housing markets were appropriately supplied in terms of lot/land supplyAustin, Atlanta, and Dallasand none were classified as slightly oversupplied or significantly oversupplied. Fast-forward to the latest reading, and 10 of the 30 markets now fall into the appropriately supplied category or higher. If Zonda had published data for more than 30 markets, my assumptionbased on my own analysisis that many pockets of Southwest Florida (including Cape Coral and Punta Gorda) would have ranked near the top. Policy uncertainty, the current cost of living, student loans, labor market concerns, interest rates, home prices, changes to immigration, geopolitics, and more have all slowed consumer demand,” wrote Ali Wolf, chief economist for Zonda and NewHomeSource, on February 9. “When consumers arent happy, builders arent happy, and thats exactly what we are seeing in the data. Builders have scaled back starts in response to slower sales, which by extension has allowed for lot supply to grow.
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