Following work together on the NBA League Pass, the National Basketball Association has made a strategic investment in subscription management company Evergent Technologies and designated it as a preferred vendor of the professional sports league.
Financial details of the investment were not disclosed, but it coincides with a multi-year extension of the companies’ partnership that began in 2022 on the league’s live NBA game subscription service, NBA League Pass.
In that time Evergent played a role to help subscriber growth and retention for the NBA’s subscription games package, alongside a global rollout that now includes 185 countries.
According to the release, over three years Evergent helped deliver personalization and tech for sports monetization and churn management “that drove significant subscriber growth” for the service – with most viewers accessing games from outside of the U.S.
“Personalization is a key priority for the league and our investment in Evergent will enable us to deliver tailored options for NBA League Pass subscribers,” said David Lee, Head of NBA Investments, in a statement. “We’re excited to support the company’s growth and strengthen our collaboration.”
The NBA itself struck new 11-year media rights deals in 2024 with Disney’s ESPN and ABC, NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime Video. Prior NBA rights holder Warner Bros. Discovery reached a settlement agreement that among other components includes global license to sports highlights and continuation as a promotional partner for NBA League Pass.
Since then, the NBA took over operations of the out-of-market game package, which is also now sold through Prime Video Channels as part of the agreement with Amazon – with expanded distribution rights for NBA League Pass in the U.S. and internationally.
As for Evergent, the vendor also recently achieved the milestone of onboarding over 1 billion global subscriptions for services, including the NBA, Sony, Sky and DirecTV.
The strategic investment by the NBA and closer involvement with the league comes at a time when the streaming subscription industry at large continues to face the challenge of churn. And where sports in particular have the potential to attract and engage fans, but services also see subscribers fluctuate as signups and exits often coincide seasonally around the live sports calendar.
Dancing with the consumer
In an interview with StreamTV Insider, Evergent Founder and CEO Vijay Sajja described how the company’s approach to subscription management and churn reduction is about “dancing with the consumer” - meaning staying in tune with user preferences.
When it comes to sports and the NBA League Pass that includes serving global demand with multi-device, cross-platform capabilities that enable fans to watch live games where and how they want to.
Per Sajja, Evergent has seen success with services in general that offer more flexibility around subscription pricing, including upgrades and downgrades, depending on what fits the consumer’s needs at the time.
For sports-focused subscribers that can mean offering different promotion or plan options depending on the time of year. Like a 50% discounted subscription during the off-season, or the ability to easily pause a subscription for a few months and then automatically restart.
The ability to pause a subscription – while seemingly simple - can have a big impact, as he noted the effort and costs to reacquire subs that cancel are higher and successfully recapturing them isn’t guaranteed.
The strategy of adaptable plan options can also apply to non-sports streaming services.
One Evergent customer onboards many people into their free service and then converts them to paid subscribers, Sajja noted. But if the user wants to go back to the free option or downgrade, the platform allows for that.
“If you look at the Gen Z, Millennials, depending on their cash flow situation, depending on where they are with the things, sometimes they may want to reduce [costs], or they may be going on vacation,” he commented. “So really being flexible and in tune with the consumer and eliminating friction in where they want to go.”
It may be obvious, he acknowledged, “but that’s what is working.”
And making plan tier options and movement flexible to reduce churn - such as downgrading into a free tier rather than full cancelation - can help keep the user within the service’s ecosystem even when they aren’t paying a full subscription price (and depending on the model, continue to generate ad revenue).
The tactic has been seen and cited by others separately, including sports-focused virtual MVPD Fubo, as one example.
Part of the rationale behind Fubo introducing a free tier is both a way to convert trial users into paid packages and to keep existing sports subscribers engaged with the platform even after their sport’s season ends and they potentially don’t want to pay for a full pay TV lineup, while also generating ad revenue.
Another tactic Sajja said Evergent has seen work well is when services do an exclusive one-time live or pay-per-view event, such as boxing, and offer a discounted subscription price to those coming in specifically for the event alongside a discount for existing subscribers to the exclusive event.
This way the exclusive and one-time events “can actually feed their base business.”
Recent data from Ampere Analysis also highlighted subscriber acquisition and churn considerations. The firm found that nearly one-third of US streaming sign-ups happen between November and January, with more consumers revaluating streaming subscriptions at the start of the year.
However, holding onto those customers picked up during the holidays can be more of a challenge, where Ampere analyst Olivia Deane wrote that long-term customer retention “hinges on deal structure and perceived value, not promotions alone,” but where “promotions lasting more than six months consistently reduced churn.”
Firing bullets, then cannonballs
When it comes to leveraging different plans and promotions to acquire and retain subscribers, Sajja said services need to be able to define what those are and offer them very quickly to the consumer.
That’s where Evergent comes in on the back end, helping to launch new offerings for services rapidly based on market feedback and adapt swiftly if something isn’t working.
It’s what the chief executive called “firing bullets” to zero in on what works for the consumer– where once one hits the mark, “then you launch a cannonball” to make it a larger effort.
Rather than a cannon-firing-first approach to chase subscribers at all costs, which he said is wasting money.
Although flexibility is a big part of the play, it’s also about curating options and knowing the right offer or promotion to put in front of a given user at a given time.
According to Sajja, “research has proven that if you give 10 different options, they’re less likely to convert, as opposed to one or two options.”
It’s an area where he said the vendor is “making a lot of inroads” and bringing in AI to predict which offers will most likely appeal and hit the mark with specific users.
Payment methods can impact conversion
And while perhaps not the sexiest aspect of streaming TV, billing and payment methods are another area Evergent is flexing strengths and tapping tech to help drive subscriber growth for clients and reduce churn.
As consumers around the globe seek to access content and consider subscriptions the payment methods they can use has an impact on acquisition and retention, and in some markets there are a myriad of ways to pay.
Part of Evergent’s work with streamers is expertise in understanding markets and using AI tech and data of 1 billion onboarded users across 180 countries for real-time predictions about the right product and promotions, and to reduce the number of payment methods a service presents to those signing up.
Sajja described a hypothetical scenario of a consumer using the latest iPhone in Singapore and having a high-speed Wi-Fi connection. With AI algorithms and Evergent platform data it’s able to make predictions about what product that person is likely to buy and the payment method they’ll use.
Again, he noted research that having too many payment options can actually cause confusion and make it less likely for a consumer to choose one, and where the main goal is to increase the conversion rate.
“Even if you improve conversion rate by one or two [percentage] points, or even a fraction of point, that makes a huge difference for these businesses.”
On the involuntary churn side – or when a service loses a customer because their billing method didn’t work – it also informs retry logic depending on the market and payment infrastructure.
Competitive with speed and scale
Part of what makes Evergent unique, according to Sajja, is the speed at which it can help partners change their offerings, be it pricing, packages, promotions or bundles to meet consumer needs – sometimes within minutes.
And the scale in terms of complexity to support those dynamic offerings quickly for services that are successful (citing customers that have over 200 million registered users on the Evergent platform). Or for those that hold events that could attract large audiences and need robust backend subscriber infrastructure. For the NBA, for example, the vendor sometimes supports 14 live games in one night. It also successfully supported subscriber infrastructure for a customer to stream the cricket Asia Cup, which saw a matchup between India and Pakistan and drove in the realms of “tens of millions of simultaneous streams.”
Still, the CEO emphasized that it is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach to subscriber growth and churn prevention, noting something that works in the U.S. might not work in Singapore or Japan.
It’s also about having a good handle on return on investment when coming up with offers to prevent churn – as promotions and discounts can still cost streamers money.
The key, he suggested, is understanding the market, consumer behavior and paying close attention to what works, what doesn’t and then adjusting based on market feedback.
AI for impact on the roadmap
AI is top of mind for Evergent in 2026 but Sajja emphasized it’s about “really creating business value” using the technology.
The vendor is actively working with 6-12 customers to find out the best ways to do so.
And while acknowledging buzz about AI abounds, he said the vendor wants to release real-world case studies by Q2 that show “where AI is actually making an impact for somebody’s business.”
As for sports and getting those fans to not only sign up but stay, enhanced and personalized experiences are also part of the play.
Sports fans in general “have an emotional connection with their team” – and as such, respond to platforms that provide a look and feel that’s tailored around their team, league and preferences, he noted.
"The future of sports streaming is in crafting personalized fan experiences that deliver unique value and foster loyalty,” stated Sajja in the NBA investment announcement. “We've seen the powerful impact of our platform on League Pass's global growth and flexibility for subscribers, and we're excited to continue innovating together to deliver even more sophisticated features that elevate fan experiences worldwide."