No league is better with social media than the NBA, a fact the league reinforced the Thursday before All-Star weekend when they unveiled custom twitter emojis for every All-Star (and a few NBA personalities). The purpose of the emojis, besides just generally being cool, is to help fans vote for the All-Star Game MVP. Per the league’s press release:
“For the first time, the Kia NBA All-Star MVP Award fan vote will be conducted exclusively through Twitter. Beginning at the start of the fourth quarter of NBA All-Star Game on TNT, fans can register MVP votes during a 30-minute window by tweeting #KiaAllStarMVP and #firstnamelastname in the same tweet.”
“Announced tonight on TNT, emojis have also been created for the Turner Sports’ Emmy Award-winning Inside the NBA studio team and game broadcast team for use during NBA All-Star 2016 in Toronto. With the lone exception of #shaq, the Turner Sports emojis are also revealed by entering #firstnamelastname.”
While it may sound a bit kitschy, the emojis are actually terrific and clever.
The league says the emojis will last until Monday, February 15, but they should strongly consider keeping them around for much longer, or at the very least just keeping the DeMarcus Cousins one around forever, because you don’t mess with perfection.
