Re: NBA Viewership Down Eight Percent From 17-18 With Early Games Down 12 Percent

[goodboy]

finally people realizing how boring 3-pointers are, its just a ball in the air

fixed

[thamadkant]

The game has been changed a bit too much from what true basketball was... Balance offense... 75% offense on mid range, post, inside the paint, dunks and layups and then 25% from the arc and long twos...

Now it's 50% of the shot attempts are from 3pt line... And Rockets case... Upto 60% in some games.

The art of the post game and scoring inside the arc in various ways is being phased out and those are some of the most beautiful part of the game... When we play in the playground... Or shoot outs with friends... It's not about jacking 3s all game... Or four step.. step backs etc

Hopefully it sends a message. Maybe make the arc wider and extend the 3pt line out

[Inklink]

People stop watching when the product is referees trying to be the show and floppers being paraded as the face of your league.

[Vegeta10176]

The game has been changed a bit too much from what true basketball was... Balance offense... 75% offense on mid range, post, inside the paint, dunks and layups and then 25% from the arc and long twos...

Now it's 50% of the shot attempts are from 3pt line... And Rockets case... Upto 60% in some games.

The art of the post game and scoring inside the arc in various ways is being phased out and those are some of the most beautiful part of the game... When we play in the playground... Or shoot outs with friends... It's not about jacking 3s all game... Or four step.. step backs etc

Hopefully it sends a message. Maybe make the arc wider and extend the 3pt line out

The 3pt line has been there for ages and now its just previously they were not smart enough to use it the way they do now in fact in two of MJs championship years they moved the 3pt line closer which was ridicolous but ok.. Its fine where it is the issue is LBJ went to the west and GSW are so stacked it's not interesting

[Stratmaster]

The game has been changed a bit too much from what true basketball was... Balance offense... 75% offense on mid range, post, inside the paint, dunks and layups and then 25% from the arc and long twos...

Now it's 50% of the shot attempts are from 3pt line... And Rockets case... Upto 60% in some games.

The art of the post game and scoring inside the arc in various ways is being phased out and those are some of the most beautiful part of the game... When we play in the playground... Or shoot outs with friends... It's not about jacking 3s all game... Or four step.. step backs etc

Hopefully it sends a message. Maybe make the arc wider and extend the 3pt line out

Amen

[IkeDoIt]

Too many non-competitive teams on National TV. Too many superstar injuries/suspensions/rest days. Everyone knows the Warriors will win it all.

[bb22]

i feel the ratings decline has more to do with cord cutting and Trump coverage on the prime time news. People particularly millennials are not paying for cable and pretty sure not paying for league pass most are streaming illegally which likely doesn't get calculated in the final viewership ratings. Also not sure how ratings are calculated for people who watch games at sports bars or hotel lobbies. Then there is the Trump factor - some people would rather watch his crazy news coverage on cable than watch a full nba game lol. Facts.

guilty haha Cable new is very interesting these days and my Bulls still stink

Same with me. I can watch every game in just as good of quality on the laptop while my girl watches whatever she wants on the tv... I feel that a lot of ppl are doing this.

Absolutely true. The only time I'm watching an NBA game on cable TV is when I'm at a bar. The NBA has never been more popular and global than it is today.
TV ratings is one, ever receding, measure of the NBA's popularity and entertainment value. Social media activity and streams are the better measures nowadays.

[wco81]

Everyone knows the Warriors will win it all.

Ask the Bucks, Raptors (who swept them, once without Kawhi), Celtics, 76ers, Nuggets and Thunder if they think they can't beat the Warriors.

Hell even the Lakers probably aren't afraid of a potential #1--#8 matchup.


As for 3-pointers and pace and space basketball turning off viewers, you have to compare ratings to what they were like 5 or 10 years ago.

In the first couple of years of the Warriors making the Finals, they were saying the ratings were the highest in like 15 years.

[spree2kawhi]

Everyone knows the Warriors will win it all.

Ask the Bucks, Raptors (who swept them, once without Kawhi), Celtics, 76ers, Nuggets and Thunder if they think they can't beat the Warriors.

Hell even the Lakers probably aren't afraid of a potential #1--#8 matchup.


As for 3-pointers and pace and space basketball turning off viewers, you have to compare ratings to what they were like 5 or 10 years ago.

In the first couple of years of the Warriors making the Finals, they were saying the ratings were the highest in like 15 years.

Great story, but the Warriors win it all anyway.

[spree2kawhi]

Sports viewership is down in EVERY sport.....there are too many options to devote 2 to 3 hours on one thing....

The superbowl was way down.....baseball had two storied franchise in the world series, and ratings were terrible....


This is the new reality.....young people are not glued to sports....

Maybe, but your story doesn't give Lebron the credit for 2,000,000 less viewers. Isn't the media's job to give Lebron the credit in every situation?

Face it... it's Lebron.

He's living proof that egos can't explode.

[MartinToVaught]

Even casuals are finally getting tired of three-point spamming, flopping, and the boring predictability of the Warriors winning.

[Barcs]

-Get rid of max deals.
-Get rid of intentional fouls
-Get rid of super teams

The NBA is a joke now, we've known the last 2 years who will win the title before the season even starts. There is no mystery. You have your top team, and a few others that are semi competitive and the rest of the league has no chance. Basically teams are either tanking or forming super teams. It's the only way and it is ruining the game because there is less overall competition.

In the old NBA you at least had teams in the 6-8 playoff slots that could potentially make the EC finals or NBA finals. Now you don't have that, it's a foregone conclusion who will win the finals already, so there is much less interest.

[Barcs]

The superbowl was way down.....baseball had two storied franchise in the world series, and ratings were terrible....

The superbowl was down for the same reason the NBA is down. People are sick of the same Patriots superbowl every year, and the whole contraversy with the Rams getting in when they clearly should not have, made people not interested. No credibility, and if the Superbowl was Chiefs vs Saints it would be record breaking viewer count, guaranteed.

[deeps6x]

I blame the drop on the shift from the NBA being a sport to it being an entertainment business. To my eyes, the games are really starting to look rigged the way the better teams get excessively punished in the first half by the refs, unless you are one of the four teams the league wants to promote for ratings. Is that from the refs being, or appearing to be less competent than in the past? Has the league handed down instructions to their refs on which teams it would be better to see in the finals each season? I don't know. But financially, wow, what a great money maker for the owners of the 30 teams.

#NBE

I really hope ten years from now they've swung it back to being more of a fair and competitive sport, and haven't gone much closer to being considered the equivalent of the WWE.

Allow blowouts when one team is far superior on a given night to the other. Home team fans might not like it, but that is what happens when games are called fairly. We should be seeing a 50 point blowout at least once per week (statistically speaking). Not just a 40 pointer once per month. Teams have bad shooting nights all the time. Those teams don't need to be rewarded with a dozen or more ref generated turnovers just to keep the games close.

'LeBron' phantom calls for star player. Uggh. Don't even get me started.

Fix the frickin' draft already. Throwing games to tank for the best picks is getting way out of hand. A simple fix is to create three draft tiers. Tier 1: Picks 1-5 all have equal 20% odds of getting the top pick. Tier 2: Picks 6-10 all have equal 20% odds of getting picks in the 6-10 range. Tier 3: picks 11-14 all have equal 25% odds of getting picks in the 11-14 range. Wide equal odds tiers will end teams trying to throw games to move up 1-2 spots. It will be much harder to tank enough to get into a lower tier and the reward for doing so just won't be worth it if at best it only gives you a 20% shot at the best player to draft in that tier. It will encourage more late season development of players on the teams, and more playing time for up and coming stars on your less talented teams. Tiers also ensure that the best picks still go to the rough place where the worst teams need the best picks to make the league more competitive. More competitive is what you want in a real sports league. Obviously it isn't what you want in an entertainment business where most of the revenue comes from TV deals based on ratings. So yeah, we know why you owners haven't fixed this yet and probably never will.

The incentive to not fix the draft, the reffing problems, etc, is obvious when you look at this as a sports entertainment business. But keep letting the quality of the product deteriorate and you will keep losing viewers and that means eventually you will start losing money when these TV deals roll over. That said, since you owners are billionaires, most of you are in your 70s and just don't care what happens 10 years from now. We need the younger owners like Cuban, to take the reins and start pushing the league to be more of a sport again. Preserve the product's quality Mark (and other owners), or I'm afraid you will regret it in the not too distant future.

[Vegeta10176]

-Get rid of max deals.
-Get rid of intentional fouls
-Get rid of super teams

The NBA is a joke now, we've known the last 2 years who will win the title before the season even starts. There is no mystery. You have your top team, and a few others that are semi competitive and the rest of the league has no chance. Basically teams are either tanking or forming super teams. It's the only way and it is ruining the game because there is less overall competition.

In the old NBA you at least had teams in the 6-8 playoff slots that could potentially make the EC finals or NBA finals. Now you don't have that, it's a foregone conclusion who will win the finals already, so there is much less interest.

But MJ had a super team 3 HOF a HOF coach and multiple 3 point shooters who were on the Olympic team.. Guess it was ok then to have the most stacked team in the league...

[Barcs]

-Get rid of max deals.
-Get rid of intentional fouls
-Get rid of super teams

The NBA is a joke now, we've known the last 2 years who will win the title before the season even starts. There is no mystery. You have your top team, and a few others that are semi competitive and the rest of the league has no chance. Basically teams are either tanking or forming super teams. It's the only way and it is ruining the game because there is less overall competition.

In the old NBA you at least had teams in the 6-8 playoff slots that could potentially make the EC finals or NBA finals. Now you don't have that, it's a foregone conclusion who will win the finals already, so there is much less interest.

But MJ had a super team 3 HOF a HOF coach and multiple 3 point shooters who were on the Olympic team.. Guess it was ok then to have the most stacked team in the league...

Compared to today's Warriors, that was not a super team. 3 mega stars just didn't decide to team up, they acquired those players over time, and MJ was the key component, unlike Durant on the Warriors, who was the "put them absurdly over the top" component.

It's like if the Bulls signed Karl Malone instead of Kukoc after they already won a few titles. In the MJ days they at least had a bunch of other competitive teams in the NBA. It wasn't just 3 or 4 that had a chance while everyone else tanked.

[Lalouie]

"The Lakers are the biggest draw in the NBA with 2.77 million viewers per game.
The Warriors rank as the second-biggest draw this season, with their games averaging 2.58 million. "

this is one reason why dynasties matter is sport - pulling in casual viewership. no must watch, no nuttin'

[DoItALL9]

It's intriguing that overall viewership is down on the East Coast games when most posters here speak tirelessly about parity in some form.
The amount of teams with a legit shot at winning the eastern conference is higher than it's been in a while.

Sent from my LG-H872 using RealGM mobile app

[A BETTER DJ]

I think these stats are probably skewed and don't reflect the huge number of people that stream games. Millions of people have cut the cord from cable and satellite and watch their sports online. The raping continues with rates rising at an alarming rate and more and more people are discovering ways to break free.