NEW YORK – The National Basketball Association today announced a series of new social media activation for The Finals including the launch of the NBAStore.com on Facebook, special venues for “The Finals” on social networking platforms Foursquare and Gowalla, and fan interaction with NBA players through SayNow. The Finals are scheduled to tip off on June 3^rd at 8:30 pm ET on ABC and ESPN Radio.  

Overall, the new activation continues to emphasize the NBA’s use of social media to enhance the game experience for fans. Currently, the NBA is the No. 1 sports league on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, with the most fans, followers, and videos viewed on each, respectively.

“Expanding our role in social media increases the ways our fans can interact and experience The Finals and is the perfect complement to our comprehensive coverage on NBA.com,” said Melissa Brenner, NBA Vice President of Marketing. “Our fans are active on multiple social media networks and we want to continue to communicate with them directly and provide them with NBA content in their favorite spaces.”

During The Finals, the NBA will conduct a special “TweetUp” for fans in Los Angeles and Boston on select game days. The events will feature appearances by NBA legends.

The league’s new social media integration during The Finals will include:

NBAStore.com on Facebook – Working closely with Milyoni – a leader in Facebook apps for social commerce – the NBA launched the NBAStore.com Facebook shop (www.facebook.com/nbastore) featuring products for every NBA team as well as merchandise for The Finals. The new store will allow users to complete a purchase without leaving Facebook, marking the first professional sports league to offer the technology.

Foursquare – Throughout The Finals, the NBA will work with Foursquare – the popular location-based social networking platform – to allow fans to officially check in from where they are watching The Finals. On Foursquare, during games fans will have ability to check-in once they arrive at the arena, receive specially designed Finals badges by “shouting” about the Los Angeles Lakers or Boston Celtics, and socialize with other fans.

SayNow – A social networking platform that allows fans to interact via voice messaging, will provide NBA players with an opportunity to communicate directly with fans through personal voice messages recorded during The Finals. The personal voice messages can be accessed by fans across the league’s official Twitter, Facebook and SayNow pages. The NBA launched its SayNow page in April, and has engaged fans by asking them to provide commentary about a variety of NBA topics.

Gowalla – The location-based social networking platform will label every Finals game as an “event” on the official Gowalla page. Any fan who checks in at an NBA arena during a game will receive a special passport stamp featuring the home team’s logo.

Throughout The Finals, the NBA will continue to utilize its official Twitter account, Facebook page and YouTube channel. Overall, the official NBA pages, all 30 NBA team pages, and NBA player pages have accumulated more than 38 million followers and fans across both Facebook (www.facebook.com/nba) and Twtter (www.twitter.com/nba).

Additionally, the NBA Channel on YouTube (www.youtube.com/nba) currently ranks as one of the most popular channels of all time and is the site’s most popular sports channel, with nearly 420 million videos viewed since its debut in February 2007.