On Monday, May 20, the National Basketball Association (NBA) revealed its new NBA Finals campaign, “The Toast”, which is now streaming across all NBA social platforms and the NBA App. NBA Legend and three-time NBA Champion Dwyane Wade gathers a cast of former champions and famous NBA fans – Ray Allen, Mike Breen, Ken Jeong, Magic Johnson, Jimmy Kimmel, Isiah Thomas, Queen Latifah and the newest members of the Chicago Sky Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese – to celebrate the pinnacle of the NBA season with a toast “to the Finals.”
The road to the NBA Finals continues this week, with Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and the 17-time NBA champion Boston Celtics taking on Pascal Siakam (Cameroon), Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers, and Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving and the 2011 NBA champion Dallas Mavericks facing Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference and Western Conference Finals series, respectively. It marks the fifth consecutive season without a defending champion in the Conference Finals, with the last four teams standing battling it out for a ticket to the Finals and a chance to compete for the Larry O’Brien Trophy next month.
“As the Playoffs near a close, we are arriving at the pinnacle of the NBA season: the NBA Finals,” said NBA Chief Marketing Officer Tammy Henault. “We wanted to ensure our creative captured the gravity of that, so the idea of bringing together the NBA community at a glamourous party to share in a celebration of the season behind us and in anticipation of what’s to come felt like the perfect way to tip off the Finals.”
“The Toast” opens with Wade hyping himself up as he prepares to deliver a tribute to the “the season that was and the champion to be” to an audience of former NBA champions, fans and celebrities at a glamorous affair. Creatively bottling the emotion that the road to the Championship evokes for all, Wade’s “Toast” honors the best of the game with references to iconic NBA moments, from Johnson’s signature no-look pass and Breen’s famous “bang!”, to Allen’s corner three and the Championship hardware itself, the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
The 2024 NBA Finals presented by YouTube tips off on the night of June 6 across Africa on ESPN, Canal+, (Pan-Africa), Afrosport (Nigeria), including select live and delayed games on Afrosport’s free-to-air affiliate channels, ZAP (Angola), SABC (South Africa) and NBA League Pass, the league’s premium subscription service. It will conclude the 78th NBA season, which delivered increased the league’s television viewership in Africa as well as increased engagement across the league’s localized social media accounts on the continent.
The more than 140 live game telecasts during the 2023-24 NBA regular season in Africa generated a 41% year-over-year increase in average viewership and nearly 6 million total watch hours. In addition, NBA Africa’s localized social media accounts generated nearly 90 million video views, while players born in Africa or with direct ties to the continent, Victor Wembanyama (San Antonio Spurs; France; ties to Democratic Republic of the Congo) and two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks; Greece; ties to Nigeria) were among the 10 most-viewed players globally on NBA social media this season, with 1.3 billion and 558 million views, respectively.
