制造潮流

Joe Drape

You may long for the old Boston Garden and its parquet floor. You may miss the short shorts of John Havlicek and Larry Bird. But the championship banners - all 17 of them - are still here in this newer arena called TD Garden， and they tell the story of one of the most iconic franchises in sports.

你大概向往老的波士頓花園球館及其拼花地板。也許你懷念約翰·哈弗里切克和拉里·伯德的短球褲。但總冠軍旗幟——總共17面——仍然懸掛在名叫TD花園的新球館，這些冠軍旗幟講述了體育史上標志性球隊之一的凱爾特人的故事。

But I didnt come for history.

但我并不是為歷史來的。

Instead， I wanted to know how the N.B.A. has become the Netflix of sports properties， a league whose players are helping transform the way sports are being bought， sold and consumed in much the same way the streaming services have changed entertainment.

相反，我想知道NBA如何變成了體育界的Netflix。我想知道這個聯盟是如何在球員的幫助下改變了體育被購買，銷售，消費的方式，就像流媒體改變娛樂圈一樣。

In the land of likes and#hashtags and stories， LeBron， K.D.， Kyrie and their peers are usually just seconds away from going viral. The N.B.A. and its stars have pumped out a staggering amount of content across social media platforms：Twitter， Instagram， Facebook， YouTube and Snapchat. So far this season， the league claims， it has had one billion actions such as likes or shares and two billion views of video highlight packages or player proclamations on these platforms.

在“點贊”和“熱詞”以及故事性方面，勒布朗·詹姆斯，凱文·杜蘭特，凱里·歐文和其他NBA球員通常距離病毒性傳播只有一步之遙。NBA及其明星在Twitter，Instagram，Facebook，Youtube和Snapchat這些社交媒體平臺上產出了數量驚人的內容。聯盟表示，本賽季截至目前，他們在社交媒體上獲得了10億點贊或分享，視頻或球員在這些平臺上的視頻點擊量達到20億。

No one has ever accused the Celtics of being hip， nor the city itself of welcoming progress with open arms. The Boston Globe recently published a multipart series on the citys troubled racial past and present. And the Celtics havent harnessed the power of social media as aggressively and creatively as， say， the Atlanta Hawks or Portland Trail Blazers.

沒人指責凱爾特人想變得時髦的打算，也沒人指責波士頓這座城市接納改變的做法。《波士頓環球報》最近刊登了一系列文章，講述這座城市種族問題令人困擾的過去和現狀。而凱爾特人還沒有像亞特蘭大老鷹或者波特蘭開拓者一樣那么激進地發揮社交媒體平臺的威力。

Yet even the hidebound Celtics are trying to jump on board.

即便如此，連守舊的凱爾特人也想跟隨這股大潮了。

"On the surface， we are a traditional old-school brand，” said Rich Gotham， the Celticspresident，“but underneath we are quite evolved."

“從表面上看，我們是一個傳統，老派的品牌。”凱爾特人總裁里奇·哥譚表示，“但內部我們的進化很快。”

The teams ownership group， led by chairman Wyc Grousbeck， is composed of private-equity veterans. Fifteen years ago， the group bought the Celtics for$360 million， a bargain. They not only wanted to hang another championship banner here — the last had come in 1986 - but also sought to unlock the value in what had become a moribund franchise.

主席維科·格羅斯貝克領頭，凱爾特人的所有者是一群私人股權投資者。15年前，這些人用3.6億美元這個優惠的價格買下了凱爾特人。……