NBA viewership down

[ChiTownHero1992]

I'll be the first to admit i haven't watched an NBA minute since early November because i got so bored an disinterested in the product. Even before that I was maybe watching 1/4 - 1/2 a game a week. I'm just done with what i see in the NBA, i'll continue to watch NCAAB and NCAAW, its atleast slightly less whinning and chucking.

[Karate Diop]

The incessant pushing of the "NBA Cup" hasn't done the league any favors either...

[Crazy-Canuck]

Theres little beauty to the game right now. Its chucking a 3, flop for fts, or the refs being the mvp of games. It's sometimes better to read the boxscore after the game than to watch the game itself. Until the playoffs that is.

[Jamaaliver]

Read on Twitter

My Suggestions:

• Fewer games -- means they each matter more.
• No more back to back games for road teams.
• More neutral site games in markets that don't have a team. (Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Cincinnati, Kansas City, St. Louis, Seattle, Vancouver.)
• Revamp the NBA Cup to guarantee the winner a playoff spot (or allow a top team to choose their playoff opponent.)
• Make all NBA Games into Cup Games for a 3-week span...not just Tuesdays and Fridays.
• Inter mix the Cup Groups to include teams from both Conferences.
• Also, rebalancing Conferences and divisions to make them more competitive and build new rivalries.
• Making games easier to watch without League Pass. Maybe make weekly games available to air on local CW affiliates
• No more marquee matchups on NBA TV. Most Americans don't have that channel.
• No more days in the season with 0 NBA Games. Even Election Day and Thanksgiving Day games can be played in Toronto

More than likely, it will just lead to a new CBA and the 2nd Apron nonsense will be eradicated so the league gets the return of super-teams.

[metafisical]

Another way to boost ratings -- allow a bit of fighting like hockey. I would love to see the Malice at the Palace every single game every night. Make every player on the court wear gloves like the UFC. Maybe allow the use of kendo sticks and nunchuks. A few missing teeth and bruises are OK if you're making millions. I'm sure all the stupid 3 point chucking and flopping will cease if there is the risk of getting whapped in the head with a crowbar.

And the NBA refs really need to be like WWE refs. The ones that are dumb, easily get distracted and get knocked out for 15 minutes.

[LockoutSeason]

I'll be the first to admit i haven't watched an NBA minute since early November because i got so bored an disinterested in the product. Even before that I was maybe watching 1/4 - 1/2 a game a week. I'm just done with what i see in the NBA, i'll continue to watch NCAAB and NCAAW, its atleast slightly less whinning and chucking.

College basketball shoots more 3s than NBA.

Kentucky has the #1 offense and 42% of their shots are 3s. The #2 offense (Samford) shoots even more 3s.

52% of Illinois’ shots are 3.
53% of Louisville’s shots are 3s

Caitlin Clark shoots 9 threes per game and she just won athlete of the year.

Same with Euroleague, around 40% of their shots are 3s.

So how exactly do any of these leagues have “less chucking”. NBA players also make their shots at a way, way higher rate.

It proves that all the complaints about 3-pointers have always been fake. I think a lot of older fans want to hate today’s NBA but couldn’t find a legitimate reason so they had to settle on “too many 3s”.

[thelead]

1. Games are too hard to find/watch. In the age of cable-cutting, you need a million subscriptions and apps to watch many of the games.

2. Sort of similar to #1 but a bit different: home teams blackouts and home team games no longer on over-the-air channels like it used to be. How will the fan base grow when a majority of kids can’t watch the home team?

3. Do not underestimate the effect that politics play in public perception regardless of the political leaning. The NBA was cool with players getting into American political topics on company time but the second Chinese political topics were brought up, it was squashed and apologies were forced. Whether right or wrong, the NBA lost a segment of the population due to political leanings.

4. Echoing everyone else, the current style of play employed by most teams is boring. There is very little differentiating teams when it comes to style of play. I think this bothers the hardcore fans like the ones on this site, me included, but it’s not going to stop Bob from buying a few tickets for the boys to enjoy some beers at the game.

[Charlie Sollers]

Many reasons for the ratings to be down:

-load management with star players
-too many games in the regular season
-games not feeling important during the regular season
-gameplay with too many 3s
-poor officiating
-former players who currently crap on the current generation of players
-too much focus on rings
-focus on the drama, transactions and off season drama instead of the actual game itself
-no young star American player on the level of Jordan, Curry, LeBron, Kobe
-expensive to watch on TV
-last few minutes games taking way too long between FTs, commercials, timeouts and reviews
-much more options for entertainment (social media, streaming networks, gaming, etc.)

Illegal streaming is also a factor but it's obviously way too hard to get any great data. I would question how much a factor is though. People will say it's a huge factor but then turn around and say no one is watching because of the above issues. So which is it?

One last thing is that the NBA more so than any other team sports league is dependant on its star players. When you're going through the history of the league it's more often than not told through the lens of the star player instead of the team itself. The NFL has many reasons for being successful but when a star QB retires, does the league panic trying to find its next Brady, Manning, Favre? Nope, the show goes on and ratings continue to go up. I understand that the nature of basketball can rely on a couple of good players on a team but the league needs to find a way to market the teams instead of the star players.

[NZB2323]

Another thing I was thinking is that when I was growing up, if a player scored 40 points or had a triple double it was a big deal.

Lebron breaking the scoring record was a big deal. The Warriors winning 73 games was a big deal. Kobe’s last game was a big deal. A random game on a Tuesday? Not a big deal, especially when the stars aren’t playing, the players are flopping and jacking up 3s and there’s tons of replay reviews so most of the camera is on the backs of refs reviewing a call or calling a foul. No one watches the NBA to see the refs.

In North Korea dunks are worth 3 points and a missed free throw is -1 points. Maybe the NBA should play a game in North Korea under those rules and see if it gets better viewership.

[Crazy-Canuck]

Another thing to add. Games never start on time, especially nationally televised ones.

If tip off is at 7:30, tip it off at 7:30. Not 7:45. Not 7:50.

Start all the pre game stuff and national anthem earlier.

[GoCeltics123]

When the NBA is the only one with declining ratings, as the other major sports see consistent ones, it is impossible not to see that there is a problem with the product for professional basketball. They need to literally stop promoting Lebron, KD and Curry full stop immediately. It is over and those days aren't coming back.

To be fair, NHL ratings have been declining for years too

[wadenation305]

Everything is declining, sports, restaurants, parks everything. Society is rotting.

[miamiheat319]

Because it's exhausting to watch a game. Dead ball every ten seconds, carrying on every possession, terrible foul calls, advertising everywhere at a detriment to the actual product, awful commentating 80% of the time. There are more negatives that outweigh the positives at least for me

[DusterBuster]

I think Adam Silver has gone too far with the NBA changes. Some have been positive, but others have just felt totally misguided and have honestly kind of made me lose interest in the league. It feels like he overcomplicated everything. Almost yearly tweaks to the ASG, none of which have improved the product (arguably all have made it worse), next to nothing done about the "injury" epidemic (trickier issue, but still something would be nice), rule changes have made playing defense next to impossible.

Then the needlessly complex NBA Cup... the gimmicky courts are an eyesore and largely tacky, using soccer/euro style point differentials to measure who gets in... its just a **** mess. Why they didn't just go with a simple March Maddness style setup over like 2 days. Take every team in the league, remove conferences and just stack them 1-30. Top 4 teams in the league get a night off, bottom 4 teams in the league dont get in. If there are ties on the cutoff numbers (4/5 and 25/26), team thats in on top or out on bottom is based on the season matches those two teams. Then just play from there.

The biggest thing the league needs to do to fix the league right now is cut down games and make them matter. They'll never ever do it cause of $$$ and cutting down games would also lead to a massive increase in ticket prices for fans. These games just don't matter until February really. If you cut down the season to where every team only plays each other one time, that means only one time a person can see Curry in their home arena, that will lead to more demand and yes, higher prices, but also less likelihood of players sitting out for the ticky-tack injuries they do these days. I also think going back to a 5 game 1st round makes sense.

Pretty much the only real major change Sliver has made that's worked is the Play-in.

[Billy Goat]

It’s mostly load management and the players openly resenting the fans. Then it’s the 3’s. And then the overarching reason was the fans never embraced Lebron like they did Jordan, Magic/Bird. Many saw him as a phony, even with his obscene talent.

[NZB2323]

It’s mostly load management and the players openly resenting the fans. Then it’s the 3’s. And then the overarching reason was the fans never embraced Lebron like they did Jordan, Magic/Bird. Many saw him as a phony, even with his obscene talent.

Outside of 2020, the NBA got good ratings with LeBron in the finals. The issue isn’t LeBron, it’s we don’t have his replacement.

[GoCeltics123]

It’s mostly load management and the players openly resenting the fans. Then it’s the 3’s. And then the overarching reason was the fans never embraced Lebron like they did Jordan, Magic/Bird. Many saw him as a phony, even with his obscene talent.

Outside of 2020, the NBA got good ratings with LeBron in the finals. The issue isn’t LeBron, it’s we don’t have his replacement.

It's why the NBA relentlessly promoted Ant last year. They wanted/needed a new face for the league when he retires, and for whatever reason, guys like Jokic/Giannis/Tatum/Luka don't drive the same ratings

[GoCeltics123]

I understand it's easier for me to say as a fan of the defending champs, but this topic really **** annoys me to the point of me straight up muting the words "ratings" and "viewership" on twitter. Can't do it anymore.

I just want to watch the games and go on with my day. I don't give a **** about if ratings are up or down

[jg77]

Load management and so many days in-between games. I remember the 66 game season and teams would play 3 games in 3 days.

Also, there's nothing exciting anymore. 73 wins was exciting cause we'd never seen it before. The Curry vs LeBron rivalry was peak NBA. There was some excitement with Zion's first season and watching him catch lobs from Lonzo...but that was short lived.

[Dan33185]

My favorite team (Wolves) haven't played in 5 days, apparently because of this stupid NBA cup thing. Hard to keep fans interest when there are such big gaps between games.