Though Nike High School Basketball League (HBL) has been gaining traction in China, it’s a comparatively new platform with a long way to go before reaching the obsessive popularity the sport enjoys in neighbouring Taiwan. Only 5 cities in China are currently represented in the league, so this year Nike decided to launch the “National HBL Invitational” with a vision to fast-track growth and turn it into the only tournament that matters.

Our challenge was to create cultural impact for the HBL in the world’s most mobile obsessed market, engaging players, the broader high school basketball community and the nation during the invitational.

"The Road to HBL" is 2:30 min of pure fantasy for young high school basket ballers - an interactive, animated, mobile choose-your-own adventure designed to give a taste of the fun, excitement and competition of playing in the Nike high school basketball league, while inspiring the next generation of ballers to be their best. They get to experience playing basketball at a level that most kids can only dream of - the epic stage, the intense competition, the passionate fans and bragging rights of being the nation's best.

To scale the spirit of HBL and fuel a national basketball movement, we created a digital first-hand experience of it that could be customised and shared.

Graphic novel-style animations of pivotal HBL moments - first training, locker room banter, fan support, a live game and the thrill of winning - can be pieced together in over 700 combinations and personalised with the addition of name, jersey colour, player number and more.

The experience was shared across Social platforms such as Wechat and Weibo and through printed QR codes on merchandise during the games. This experience was launched on April 17th 2018 the day the national finals was announced and ran during the 2 weeks leading up to the grand final on April 30th.