The NBA has had struggles with their officials, from bad calls to refs gambling on the games they officiate. In an effort to combat their problems with officials, the NBA has launched an online “Video Rule Book.” The site walks through easy-to-understand rules such as traveling and dribbling violations and also tackles the more subjective rules like technical and flagrant fouls, using real video examples with commentary to explain each type of rule violation.
The NBA has recently pledged to be more transparent with their business, and this new feature is an example of their efforts. The goal of the rule book is to better educate fans going into the season, when their officials will be most closely scrutinized, to make sure fans, players and officials all understand the same rules. While this is not such an issue for the players and officials, as they are forced to know the full extent of the official NBA rule book for their profession, fans often times misunderstand the NBA game. Basketball is trickier than other professional sports as it moves up in the professional ranks — rule changes are more drastic and can be evident in the game, such as the defensive three-second rule. This new online tool will help fans understand the professional game before the 2009-2010 season tips off and will act as a resource for the league and local market clubs to promote during those games that end with a dicey call.
Stu Jackson, the league’s executive vice president of basketball operations, told the AP the site would be “a place of reference for everyone with respect to how our games are officiated.”
Jackson also noted it’s the first site of its kind and the videos are the same ones used to train NBA officials.
With social media everywhere, think about how hard companies work to be fully transparent today. The NBA example above demonstrates how to be transparent early on to head-off problems in the future. They understand the problems they’ve had with the officials and built an easy-to-use online educational tool. Also, as the NBA’s popularity continues to spread across the globe it should be a nice resource for fans trying to pick up the sport.
Now, it’s not perfect. You can’t easily share the content. Think about a big game that ends in a bad call. I think people might want to share the video from this site with their friends to explain it was or was not a violation of the rules.
Inside the NFL people refer to the league as a “copycat league” because what’s successful at one team you’ll usually see at two or three other teams the following week. With a boatload of rules misinterpreted weekly, maybe the NFL should live-up to that moniker and copy the NBA’s rule book to create their own…we’ll see.