Case Study: How Panjaya Localized a 9-Part NBA Docuseries in Just 2 Weeks

When the NBA set out to tell the story of the Boston Celtics’ historic 18th championship season, they envisioned something ambitious: a nine-part documentary series, Raising 18, filled with behind-the-scenes footage, player interviews, and game-day action. Each episode, spanning 10–15 minutes, aimed to capture the essence of the Celtics' journey to their record-breaking title. But the NBA's vision for the docuseries didn't stop there. They also wanted to share this story with a global audience, delivering the series in French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The challenge? Localizing all 9 episodes with over 70 speakers in 3 languages within two weeks.

The Project: “Raising 18” Celtics Documentary Series

Raising 18 is a nine-episode documentary that chronicles the Boston Celtics' 2023–2024 NBA season, culminating in their 18th championship title. Narrated by Celtics center Al Horford, the series offers fans an exclusive look into the team's journey, from offseason acquisitions to the championship parade. Each episode delves into different aspects of the season, highlighting key moments and player experiences.

The Challenges of Localizing Raising 18

Localizing Raising 18 presented two major challenges that made traditional dubbing impossible to execute within the two-week timeline.

Challenge 1: Domain-specific terminology

Basketball isn't just a game, it's a language. The docuseries was packed with team slang, technical jargon, and casual expressions that don’t translate cleanly. Getting it right required deep subject matter understanding and careful, context-specific translation. In traditional workflows, this kind of localization often involves a long back-and-forth between the customer and the localization team, including translators and project managers. Each segment may need multiple iterations before reaching approval. Aligning all translations across dozens of speakers and hundreds of segments might have taken months under these conditions.

Challenge 2: 60–70 speakers per episode

Each episode featured a staggering number of unique speakers, from players and coaches to staff and commentators, all with distinct voices and speaking styles. In a traditional dubbing workflow, every speaker would need to be individually cast, recorded in a studio, synced to the video, and reviewed. Multiply that effort across three languages and nine episodes, and you're suddenly looking at hundreds of hours of direction, voice recording, and post-production. Any late changes would trigger costly re-recordings. Simply put, localizing Raising 18 through conventional dubbing methods within two weeks would have been impossible.

Our Solution: Speed Without Sacrificing Quality

We addressed these challenges with a mix of automation and human-in-the-loop fine-tuning.

Automated speaker detection and translation

Panjaya's AI platform automatically detects each speaker, breaks the transcription into segments, translates those segments, and generates natural-sounding dubs for each one. This eliminates the need to hire dozens of voice actors per language, dramatically reducing both cost and turnaround times. Instead of coordinating studio sessions and syncing lines manually, we could produce high-quality dubbed versions for all nine episodes within a matter of days. Not only that, but Panjaya's AI also preserved the unique cadence, energy, and tone of each speaker, making the experience feel authentic and emotionally resonant for international viewers.

Streamlined human-in-the-loop translation review workflow 

Panjaya's platform is built to make the QC process fast, intuitive, and collaborative. Instead of juggling email threads, spreadsheets, and file versions, translators and reviewers can collaborate directly in our Dubbing Studio. The studio enables direct review and modification of translation text and voice performances, with immediate playback to instantly hear the impact of dubbing changes. This allows teams to quickly assess the tone, timing, and delivery of each speaker, make precise adjustments, and move confidently toward final approval. The result? Faster decisions, fewer miscommunications, and a dramatically accelerated path from draft to polished dub.

Here's how we moved from source video to finalized multilingual content in just two weeks:

• AI-generated translations and dubs: Our platform automatically created an initial pass of translations and audio dubs, saving months of manual effort.
• Review and refinement: Our team internally reviewed the translated text and dubbed performances and collaborated with the client to incorporate any feedback, all within the Dubbing Studio.
• Finalization: Once all the dubs were approved, we generated the fully polished,  localized videos.

This streamlined process enabled us to turn around all three language versions of the full series in under two weeks.

Distribution, Impact & Ongoing Partnership

The localized versions of Raising 18 have been distributed across multiple NBA platforms. The project’s success didn’t just deliver value in the short term, it also laid the groundwork for an ongoing partnership. The NBA saw firsthand how quickly and effectively we could handle a complex localization challenge without sacrificing quality or nuance.

As a result, we've continued working with the NBA on new projects. We recently localized NBA OGs: Friends & Rivals, an exclusive interview with LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant, into French, Spanish, and Portuguese. And we're currently working on Pass the Rock, a docuseries that offers a candid look at the league’s rising stars, in French, Spanish, and Portuguese as well. These follow-on collaborations reflect the NBA’s continued confidence in Panjaya's ability to deliver high-quality localized content fast, at scale, and with attention to detail.

Bring Global-Scale Video to Life

Our collaboration with the NBA demonstrates that large-scale, high-quality video dubbing is achievable within incredibly tight timelines. By leveraging our AI-powered video dubbing platform, brands can expand their global reach quickly without sacrificing the emotional impact of their messaging.

Want to bring your own content to life, at global scale, in record time? Let’s talk.