Title	NIKE BASKETBALL: RISE 2.0 GREATER CHINA
Brand	NIKE BASKETBALL
Product/Service	TRAINING ECOSYSTEM
Category	A02. Creative Innovation (incl. business solutions in association with a brand or creative campaign)
Entrant Company	AKQA London, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency	AKQA London, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency 2	ARTISAN London, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Agency	MINDSHARE CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Production Company	WISPARK Shanghai, CHINA

Name	Company	Position
Xavier Jacob	Akqa	Creative Director
John Cross	Akqa	Creative Director
Viv Greywoode	Akqa	Art Director
Andrew Freshwater	Akqa	Account Director
Carlos Matias	Akqa	Design Director
Pedro Vilas Boas	Akqa	Senior Art Director
Jose Paz	Akqa	Art Director
Lionel Agbadou	Akqa	Art Director
Samuel Mensah	Akqa	Designer
Aleks Wnuk	Akqa	Creative
Jam Li	Akqa	Copywriter
Leslie Cheng	Akqa	Account Director
Susan Xu	Akqa	Account Executive
Duan Evans	Akqa	International Executive Creative Director
Alistair Schoonmaker	Akqa	Client Partner
Luke Malcolm	Artisan	System Technical Architect
Tiemen Rapati	Artisan	Technical Senior Designer
Nicholas Wood	Artisan	iOS Developer
Ulla Winkler	Artisan	Executive Producer
Van Wang	Wispark	Senior Account Director

The Brief

If you’re a kid in Greater China, no one encourages you to play basketball. The pressures of school and academia outweigh the value of sport. Parents aren’t supportive or encouraging, viewing basketball as a waste of time. Kids have very little access to any kinds of formal/structured coaching either in school or in their spare time. The standard of coaching is low for most kids, and China’s censorship system makes it difficult for them to access a variety of coaching content online. This means they lack the direction, the means and the self-belief to really push themselves and progress in the sport they love. Nike wanted to prove to them that playing basketball and training could make a difference to their everyday lives, and in doing so, help the sport to grow across Greater China. In 2014, we created the first ever full size LED court for the players and athletes involved in Rise. This year we wanted to evolve this platform, to create an ambitious basketball coaching tool that would deliver an authentic and innovative training experience to change the way the sport was coached. We created the world’s most advanced basketball coaching tool. A fully connected training ecosystem comprising of a simple and intuitive coaching app, an incredibly accurate tracking system and a fully reactive LED court. Measuring progression was paramount, as we wanted to prove to players that it was key to train to gain self-confidence and improve their game. Our focus was on how this technology can improve the training process necessary for one to get better, while visually demonstrating and tracking individual player progression. This is a Beta prototype, first generation that was live tested prior to and during public show events in Shanghai. Total budget for concepting, development and production was between $4-6M.

The tool delivers a highly sophisticated coaching system. Players can be accurately tracked, monitored and assessed on court and immediately begin improving their game. It gives coaches the power to elevate the performance of Basketball Players of any level. The coaching ecosystem was created for participants of the Rise 2015 campaign. The ambition was simple: Give them the best tools to improve, progress and grow their self-belief as players. This is currently the only coaching ecosystem of its kind. It’s the first to use this type of real-time tracking, deliver instant on-court feedback and allow coaches to create and edit drills and draw on the court instantaneously. The ecosystem comprises of three connected parts: Black-Trax Tracking System • 20x synchronised 2.0 megapixel cameras, running at 100fps track infrared beacons mounted on each ankle of the players. Accurate to 1-2 cm, capable of tracking 25+ players simultaneously, able to identify left/right foot placement. Essential, given foot placement is fundamental to basketball training. Coaching App • A custom-built coaching tool that allows coaches to pull from a library of existing NBA drills, custom create or edit drill, using a bespoke language of icons, building any drill by touch, then instantly upload to the court. Coaches can annotate instantly beneath the players on court using the ‘draw’ function. Fully reactive LED basketball court • Combined with the LED court, the tool’s power is amplified. Drills, player data and feedback are displayed directly on the court, the playing surface reacting instantly to players’ movements. Drills can be altered at any time, giving faster progression and clearer gains for players to set targets from. Currently, Nike is looking at applications for the system at both elite and consumer level. It is likely a version of the system will appear in Toronto during All Star weekend.

We are working with Nike Global Basketball and the NBA to continue to develop the coaching tool. Long term, there is potential applications within the NBA, at US Basketball colleges and ambition for it to become a proprietary Nike coaching system for elite level athletes. It has the potential to revolutionize the way the game is coached, from a visualization point of view, but also using data analytics to guide everything from training programs, injury prevention or team selection. The tool was used intensively for daily coaching sessions during RISE 2015, where 30 Chinese kids undertook 6 weeks of intensive, pro-level training. We worked with world class athletes, Kobe Bryant & LeBron James, who tested the product and were assisted by high profile NBA and coaches, (Dee Brown Assistant Coach of the Denver Nuggets). Potential future applications for the system include: • Team optimization based on which players combine best according to the data • Injury prevention through data-based training programs • Prolonging athletes careers through adaptive data-based training • Live in-game player analysis for NBA teams • Cloud-based drill library for a global coaching community • Consumer facing applications and training centers where amateur athletes can experience pro training