NBA viewership down

[xchange55]

NBA continually pushing Lebron has backfired. Anyone who has played competitive basketball in their life knows he's just a stat padding player who has no hustle and plays no defense. Any objective coach would bench him. Not to mention all the travels and moving picks he gets away. So right there you turned away alot of basketball fans. Remember all the preseason hype the league tried to build with Bronny? How it became more WWE than NBA? Another big turn off for alot of fans.

Players like Jokic/SGA/Ant/Tatum/Brunson have skill, hustle and making winning basketball plays. But for whatever reason, the league wants to promote old and broken Lebron/KD/Steph.

How many sports stories do I need to see throughout the season questioning what trade the Lakers have to make to be a title contener. Yet they're just a 8-10 seed each year. The playoff expansion was probably made just to allow Lebron in to the playoffs.

The NFL is hitting 10 year highs in veiwership. Sure they had some years of slight decline, but slight. So you can't really use that argument that the younger generations consume sports differently when the NFL is doing just fine.

[Jailblazers7]

I blame Ja & Zion lol. They were set up to be the next American megastars but both fumbled the bag.

[xchange55]

Nobody really cares about lebron, and the fact that people keep scapegoating his teammates and coaches just makes it look like espn and fs1 are backing toxic player that every non-bias casual fan can. If it wasnt gonna be dangelo russell, then it would have been dejounte murray or dennis schroder.. lebron claims he was a point but cant play off-the ball.

This part of the post made me

All the difference pieces of the puzzle fail, and yet the common denominator is a lazy defenseless LBJ. I thought the great ones were supposed to lift the other players - well the true great ones anyways.

[Jailblazers7]

Another thing is that bad ownership of some marquee franchises has been a big issue for the league.

Lakers - bad or mediocre for the last 15 years outside of the bubble
Knicks - bad for 20 years until Dolan recently stepped aside from day to day ops
Bulls - bad or mediocre except for a couple D-Rose years because of cheap/bad ownership

Outside of having another LeBron or Steph come along (not gonna happen) they need more juice from these franchises.

[AIfan3]

A lot of valid points being made. But I'm always going to stand by the point that the NBA messed up when they decided to nuke defense and forced teams to all adopt similar play styles.

Just as recently as the mid to late 00s, teams actually had personality and identity. Not everyone was attempting to win playing the same style.

Teams like the Pistons, Spurs, Celtics prided themselves on locking down a team. You knew it was going to be a slog when you played those teams.

Certain teams had one or two superstars, like Wade, Kobe, Rose, and Bron, that could outgun you and single handedly change the dynamics of a game.

Other teams had a more college level approach where they had like a 12 man rotation that would all contribute and would wear down an opponent who's team was top heavy.

It created more storylines and people tuned in. Nowadays, all of that is gone.

[Rafael122]

I went down the rabbit hole because I had no idea what the Christmas day games were. I don't see OKC on on the slate. I then checked to see how many national TV games OKC has this year and they have 13. I'm not counting NBATV games. I think one reason why interest could be down is that the NBA doesn't know how to market themselves properly, or fail to react in real time. SGA was already getting buzz in the 2nd half of the season last year, and was an MVP candidate entering this season (still is). But instead of putting them on a slate where viewership will be higher than normal, we're revisiting 2016 and getting Warriors/Lakers, Sixers/Celtics as if it means anything the moment, and Nuggets/Suns, two teams who are scuffling a bit and aren't what we thought they were.

They got it right with putting Wemby, but SGA/OKC should have been on the docket for a Christmas Day game. The other issue I have with them is their inability to flex NBA games post-January. At that point you kinda know who stinks and who's on the verge of tanking, but for whatever reason, all of these national TV games are locked in and they can't do anything about it, so you get the 29 win Hawks playing against the 28 win Kings in the middle of March on TNT.

[cursedsportsfan]

I haven’t watched one game this season and last year before the playoffs I MAYBE watched 5.

Like others have said the similar style of play and spamming 3s is just boring to me.

I still love basketball and that’s why I check on here every few days to see any news, how players are doing, and general thoughts. But sitting through a game seems both boring and a waste of time.

Maybe I’m just getting old but it seems like there is something seriously missing from the NBA.

[John Murdoch]

Haven't watched a game this season. My care factor is almost 0.

It has been dropping every year. Main reason is that I feel a lot of the player's are just a spoilt bunch and the league catering to there every whim.

Silver is a horrible commissioner who is too soft and just let the players basically run thr league.

Now the league are handcuffed to quickly turn this around

Mainly agree, suprised how scared they are of a lockout

[NBA4Lyfe]

Nobody really cares about lebron, and the fact that people keep scapegoating his teammates and coaches just makes it look like espn and fs1 are backing toxic player that every non-bias casual fan can. If it wasnt gonna be dangelo russell, then it would have been dejounte murray or dennis schroder.. lebron claims he was a point but cant play off-the ball.

This part of the post made me

All the difference pieces of the puzzle fail, and yet the common denominator is a lazy defenseless LBJ. I thought the great ones were supposed to lift the other players - well the true great ones anyways.

bro harden is still catching heat for alledgley getting kevin mchale fired in 2016. If Mchale was unfairly fired then why hasnt he even had so much of a coaching interview anywhere else in the league. Why is it only players who wanna be buddy with lebron that speak highly of him like paul george for being a bust signing. The players that side with kobe.. harden,trae, tatum, kyrie, booker, kawhi always seem to get the most heat and no credit when they do good. Meanwhile the lakers are ass yet again despite almost doubling the next closet team in free-throw attempts and the only team in nba 2k25 with current 2x current 95 overall players according to ronnie 2k and they still suck lol

no really..how many players is this guy gonna ship out and coaches get fired before we call an ace an ace and a spade a spade smh

[Nate505]

108 3pt attempt combined in the Celtics - Bulls game? No one wants to watch that trash. Baseball changed the infield shift rule. Silver needs to grow a sack

Does anyone really find these amount of attempts entertaining? 56% of the shots were 3s. The whole point of the shot was supposed to be a worse shot for a higher reward, not the standard shot in the game.

I detest the shot, but I don't want to get rid of it. It does provide a good dynamic to the game, but not when it's the single most attempted shot in the game.

[disoblige]

For me why I don’t watch more nba games because of gambling. I don’t support their gambling ads and partnership. I consider it greedy and evil.

[Chevymana]

A lot of good points being made in this thread. All can be true, but for me, it's three things:
1. Analytic, nerd influence in basketball (3 pointers, layups only)
2. Lack of defense
3. Refs not allowing personalities

I am blessed to have access to watch all games, but I have not watched a game in its entirety in about a year. The league is so predictable with the constant 3 point shooting. These guys are some of the most, physically gifted athletes in the world. The NBA had a wow factor when you seen Shaq, Jordan or Vince Carter doing things that you could physically only imagine; it captivated people. Now, you've got these gifted athletes shooting all 3's (something my girlfriend can do). It was something to watch Jordan/Kobe hitting a tough, heavily contested fadeaway and having to use their entire vertical to get the shot off! You don't get moments like Vince jumping over a man for a dunk, if the defense isnt aggressive. For those that have hooped, you know that you exhibit things you didn't even know you were capable of when you are contested/challenged. When I watch the games now, it's like everyone is going through shooting drills. It makes it hard truly judge the greatness of today's players. People keep talking about scoring being up, analytics and today's player's skill level. But guess what, none of this matters if it isn't competitive. Having villain style defenders like the Davis brothers, Xavier Mcdaniel, Starks, Mason is equally as important as superstar scoring. It's the main reason most DC comic movies have been struggling...they have not invested in good villain's storylines to counter their superheroes. You need balance and the NBA is as one sided as it's ever been!

[Hello Brooklyn]

Read on Twitter

NHL ratings are down more than the NBA. No pearl clutching and outrage?

I wonder why. The right wing blows up any decline in NBA ratings for political purposes.

MLB ratings are also down, despite a big world series because it was Dodgers v Yankees.

All ratings on TV in general are down. Nobody under 35 has cable anymore. Less people want to spend 2 hours watching live sports when people are spending their time on social media and Youtube.

NBA is moving towards streaming which is smart. But expecting a ratings decline to stop is stupid. NBA is still selling broadcast rights for a ton of money for a reason.

[mattg]

Problem is on the NBA and tying themselves so hard to ESPN. In ESPN's quest for ratings for years they have absolutely trashed 95% of NBA franchises and fans, and pushed narratives NONSTOP to try and take star players out of smaller markets and into "big markets". Despite this, ratings still go down. It's an immense failure on both the league and ESPN, the league for allowing their broadcast partner to utterly trash their product nonstop instead of following the NFL model of success. It's not apples to apples, but you don't have every chiefs pregame show for the last 7 years screaming about how Mahomes needs to get to a big market. Or the studio crew absolutely trashing the team/city who is in the playoffs because its not Miami or Los Angeles or something. These are absolutely marketing abominations by both ESPN and the NBA as they have done their best to convince the majority of basketball fans that only 4-5 teams matter at any time, that star players should be leaving their teams to go to NY/LA/Miami and that all the other cities are shltholes that no one would ever even want to visit let alone live in.

On top of that, the NBA has held onto the Lebron/Durant generation for wayyyyyy too long at the expense of hyping the new generation of all time greats. The fact that many casuals don't know the top players in the league aside from Bron/Durant/Curry and whoever is on their local team is an absolute marketing failure.

[Mephariel]

Read on Twitter

NHL ratings are down more than the NBA. No pearl clutching and outrage?

I wonder why. The right wing blows up any decline in NBA ratings for political purposes.

MLB ratings are also down, despite a big world series because it was Dodgers v Yankees.

All ratings on TV in general are down. Nobody under 35 has cable anymore. Less people want to spend 2 hours watching live sports when people are spending their time on social media and Youtube.

NBA is moving towards streaming which is smart. But expecting a ratings decline to stop is stupid. NBA is still selling broadcast rights for a ton of money for a reason.

Yeah, there is not a single more disingenuous group of people than right wingers.

I will say that discussions about 3 pointers and the TV decline are legit, but I love how people ignore the fact the NBA is bigger than ever before, and that attendance is rock solid, and that social media shows tremendous interests.

If the NBA should blow it up, hockey should have done it a decade ago.

Strike: Political derailing

[The Master]

I blame Ja & Zion lol. They were set up to be the next American megastars but both fumbled the bag.

This.

NBA fans got use to specific way of NBA consumption: big markets, big faces of the league, big rivalries, big narratives. It was oftentimes funny from more 'geeky' perspective, but it was also a decent vehicle of keeping things intense for years with several great American players.

In 2024, the biggest star in the NBA is still 40yo LeBron.

Not because there aren't fantastic players like Jokic or Giannis or SGA or Doncic or Wemby - but because this consumption model didn't take into account that international players may be competing for the MVP for years now. It's very hard to promote these players (and the league) in the same narrative-driven way. We don't have Jokic vs Jordan convos and we would've had them if Jokic was an American.

And it happens in time where sports in general has tremendous competition in streaming-oriented era by several platforms or alternative social media (and more broadly: free time consumption).

So these meta-explanations, eg. 'too many threes!', and so on, are clueless. Steph Curry is still probably the 2nd biggest star of the NBA right now and he's a symbol of this era. Giannis is an epitome of 90s basketball to big extent, but he's not an American.

[Ugly0598]

The Denver dipshits aren’t helping anyone.

[MrBigShot]

NBA continually pushing Lebron has backfired. Anyone who has played competitive basketball in their life knows he's just a stat padding player who has no hustle and plays no defense. Any objective coach would bench him. Not to mention all the travels and moving picks he gets away. So right there you turned away alot of basketball fans. Remember all the preseason hype the league tried to build with Bronny? How it became more WWE than NBA? Another big turn off for alot of fans.

Players like Jokic/SGA/Ant/Tatum/Brunson have skill, hustle and making winning basketball plays. But for whatever reason, the league wants to promote old and broken Lebron/KD/Steph.

How many sports stories do I need to see throughout the season questioning what trade the Lakers have to make to be a title contener. Yet they're just a 8-10 seed each year. The playoff expansion was probably made just to allow Lebron in to the playoffs.

The NFL is hitting 10 year highs in veiwership. Sure they had some years of slight decline, but slight. So you can't really use that argument that the younger generations consume sports differently when the NFL is doing just fine.

Thanks for the laugh

[tribulations]

Haven't watched a game this season. My care factor is almost 0.

It has been dropping every year. Main reason is that I feel a lot of the player's are just a spoilt bunch and the league catering to there every whim.

Silver is a horrible commissioner who is too soft and just let the players basically run thr league.

Now the league are handcuffed to quickly turn this around

Mainly agree, suprised how scared they are of a lockout

I've hit my walkaway point and I think many others are at the same crossroad.

Silver's gotta go.

[CallMeKahn]

Because ain't nobody paying for cable. When you lock a product behind a regressive-base product (cable subscriptions have dropped by 20m in the last five years), you cannot reasonably expect numbers to increase. That's called insanity.

The media agreements should rectify this to a large degree. But frankly, I can't be bothered to pay 90 bucks USD for cable when I have other subscriptions I'd rather pay for. My entertainment money only goes so far.