NBA Hispanic Outreach
By Zak Rozsman
For several years now the National Basketball Association (NBA), has been celebrating Noche Latina to reach out and appeal to their Hispanic fan base. The NBA refers to this as their “Noches Éne-Bé-A” Hispanic marketing program. Part of this outreach involves featuring Spanish versions of certain teams’ jerseys. Some of the teams that have participated in this outreach are the Phoenix Suns, San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat and the New York Knicks. Examples of the Hispanic versions of the jerseys are Los Suns, Los Spurs, Los Lakers, Los Bulls, El Heat and Nueva York and this is where the controversy begins. The NBA’s marketing research suggests that many people in the Spanish speaking community refer to their favorite team’s name in this fashion, with a combination of Spanish and English. We touched on this topic in a previous blog post titled “Gringonizing Spanish” https://www.worldtranslationcenter.com/blog-posts/gringonizing-spanish.
While a large majority of Hispanic fans appreciate the sentiment from the NBA to acknowledge this sector of the fan base there has always been a large population of fans and language purists that would prefer the full translation. Some examples of the full translation on the jerseys would be:
The Suns= Los Soles
The Bulls= Los Toros
The Spurs= Las Espuelas
The Heat = El Calor