Video on why the General Public is Tired of the League

[bledredwine]

I'm going to leave this here and don't let the clickbait thumbnail fool you.

This guy is a fan of the modern game over past eras and prefaces by talking about how talented the players are.
This video is not a cover up way to say "x era is better than x era" or "today's game or last decade's game is better" as most here try to do.

Instead, he explains why so
many people are completely phased out from the league.

Regardless of which era you prefer, the joy to watch the game should remain if you like the game itself.
He addresses the regular season, the Allstar game being a reflection and the fact that it's not the players fault but completely fixable.

Politics aside, Obama makes a point about the Allstar game that we all see and know. And merely dismissing it as "entertainment" is an excuse- How is it entertainment when even fans of the modern game don't find it entertaining?
It's a reflection of the league and how competitive the players are. And if they aren't? It's not necessarily their fault but how the league has changed.

"You all have to add more pride to that all star game. It's broke man. People just not running, trying all kinds of.... it used to be when Kobe, Michael, and those guys were playing? They didn't play like they did during the regular season, but they wanted to win." - Obama

Watch on YouTube

[tsherkin]

This is a lot of pointless whining, honestly.

[bledredwine]

This is a lot of pointless whining, honestly.

Uh...... You literally made this post right after I posted, so I know you didn't even give it a chance.

How about actually watching before saying that instead of lying about it?

[Charlie Sollers]

Amazing. We don't have enough content on why the NBA is bad.

[tsherkin]

This is a lot of pointless whining, honestly.

Uh...... You literally made this post right after I posted, so I know you didn't even give it a chance.

How about actually watching before saying that instead of lying about it?

Got about 5 minutes into him whining about how Jokic and Giannis weren't compelling enough stars, but I've seen this video before. It's 3 months old.

Maybe instead of assuming I didn't watch it and telling me I'm lying, you should just deal with the opinion.

[Bergmaniac]

How is the league crumbling when it just signed a 76 billion TV contract?

I tried watching the video, but after 6-7 minutes I still couldn't see what point it was making. Something about the current stars not being compelling enough, but no explanation why this is supposedly the case.

[tsherkin]

How is the league crumbling when it just signed a 76 billion TV contract?

I tried watching the video, but after 6-7 minutes I still couldn't see what point it was making. Something about the current stars not being compelling enough, but no explanation why this is supposedly the case.

"Blah blah blah, they aren't dicks like Shaq, blah blah blah, they don't thump their chest and scream like Kobe, blah blah blah." And so forth.

[Homer38]

The OP is afraid of LeBron like crazy for some time that he is so desperate, he makes so many false claims, random stats, etc....If he knew that LeBron was not a threat to Jordan, no way he would be so insecure at that point

[bledredwine]

How is the league crumbling when it just signed a 76 billion TV contract?

I tried watching the video, but after 6-7 minutes I still couldn't see what point it was making. Something about the current stars not being compelling enough, but no explanation why this is supposedly the case.

Viewership has been declining in recent years. Of course the league is still worth a ton. It’s been build over several decades as the only important league of an American made sport, in America.

[BrianInPhilly]

For me I think it’s a generational thing a bit, in that I’m not very fond of the personalities of a lot of these guys nowadays. I’m 31 so people in their 20’s can be a bit off putting - for lack of a better term. “On average” of course. So that can filter into the game too in that players are more fake, more self centered, more social media driven than in years past. There’s always outliers but the 2000’s era competitiveness TEAM WISE was just different … lakers, Mavs, spurs etc etc. Guys really cared about winning. Now guys are competitive but it seems more of a 1 on 1 personal thing player to player. Pride in team/city is lacking. Rules make it harder to keep guys together too which contributes to it.

Then the “political correctness” of athletes is strengthened by Adam Silver fining guys left and right for controversial things … Kyrie, Edwards, even on court emotions. All this makes the athletes like robots to me which is a major turnoff to me. Kobe, KG, even Dirk guys I grew up watching said whatever to the media and you can tell it was heart felt. I mean Kg literally broke down in tears in an interview to john Thompson expressing his hurt to losing with the Wolves, Dirk shed tears, Dirk gave genuine answers to media, Kobe ultra intense personality with that “dog” in him to win. You have guys acting like they’re that way nowadays but few are actually build that way. Even Ant seems way more ego 1 on 1 driven than competitive in a sense to uplift his team. It’s a different mentality.

[Charlie Sollers]

Solutions to fix the league based off the video:

Reduce the number of alternate jerseys
Get start into the dunk contest
Fix the all star game
Create 1 off games (such as playing outdoors and bringing your pets)
Don't let inside the NBA die

[CROBulls]

NBA league is too rich. Owners are rich. Players themselves are too rich. Sounds weird to say, but I think there must be some correleation why more wealth leads to less caring about actual sport (in this case basketball). When you have guys like Jimmy Butler in a league, **** getting everything he wants, and then on other hand scrubs making 20M and not carring about game. You can get sense that public is not gonna care about product either.

NBA themselves is doing everything to increase more money around league last few years. Including betting. That's not way to increase interest from young people. But they not doing anything increase actual quality of teams and sport. If anything they doing everything in power to make this league crap.

Owners like Bulls dont care about product on floor. Just be in middle and be good to go. This is a story of last 28 years in Bulls franchise. Owners of Dallas Mavericks dont care about sport, reason why they accepted trade of franchise player for some guy called AD. But they care about maximizing profit and trying enable gambling in Texas. That was plan when buying a team. Alienating your fanbases is great way to not watch games anymore.

Players themselves dont care about All-Star game, that's why All-Star is bad. Lets be clear here. And people forget that players are product of league. And this starts from Lebron James himself. There are no rivalies in a league, everybody is buddy buddy. Because "connections" are important. Wanna retire, connections gonna find you cushy job in ESPN or some team.

This league is spiriling down. Not in a sense of losing money, because Silver did great job making league and owners and players rich. Enough rich so they dont care anymore about anything happening on basketball floor. That's a very bad thing. Remove ads, remove timeouts.

He destroyed integrity of game, we lost complete side of basketball called defense, enabled sponsors on jerseys, inflated stats for short boost viewership (which is now in decline) and people wonder why people who dont watch anymore games. This will all eventually trickle down to money also. Maybe not tommorow, but eventually.

I didnt watch single game of Bulls last 3+ years. I dont care anymore. Ill watch some short highlights on YT from here or there. Not interested in game of basketball as it is today.

[LuDux1]

How is the league crumbling when it just signed a 76 billion TV contract?

I tried watching the video, but after 6-7 minutes I still couldn't see what point it was making. Something about the current stars not being compelling enough, but no explanation why this is supposedly the case.

They signed it to distract attention from Davis' injury, duh

[chilluminati]

He brings up good points. Ratings are also down because it's nearly impossible to watch basketball without paying for a service provider, and younger people are not watching regular TV or paying for it. I'm less concerned with threes and more concerned about the travesty that is local blackouts. Teams like the Nuggets have it really bad. The NBA's new media rights deal should help here, but we will have to wait and see what the stipulations and loopholes are that these greedy companies can come up with to continue milking our pockets. No thanks, I'll continue to steal basketball happily.

There are TONS of factors to why some are tired of the NBA. For me, that's the biggest issue though. Not the product, just being able to consume it in general.

To get back to the video though, I'll agree that a lack of passion and drive is a factor indeed. Players are more friendly and have less pride in their team. You can't force players to care on an emotional level like they did in the past unfortunately. It could just be how Millennials and Zoomers think vs past generations, how they're brought up, and how they interface with the game of basketball and it's business.

You cannot underestimate how much more informed players are today vs yesterday, and with that it saps some of the competition from the league. How can a player just magically care about a team on an emotional level when they just don't care? Whether it's understanding they're pawns, knowing their owner is a racist, woke culture and messaging telling them how to think etc. How can they be excited to go and play a pointless game when everyone else in the league is getting a week off of work? Saying they make millions is a great argument for us, but these dudes are in a celebrity bubble essentially, they aren't hearing that.

what he didn't talk about enough in the video was the issues with the basketball product itself. Extend the 3 pt line, bring back hand checking or something. But that's much easier to fix than the other bigger meta issues imo.


TLDR: TV deals ruin the watching experience and people change over time, we can't just expect a generation of players to care more on an emotional level, especially given the infodump era we live in with the internet being at our fingertips and the knowledge players are armed with entering the league. So they best change the game within the game how they can, because they can't brainwash kids into caring.

[hardenASG13]

How is the league crumbling when it just signed a 76 billion TV contract?

I tried watching the video, but after 6-7 minutes I still couldn't see what point it was making. Something about the current stars not being compelling enough, but no explanation why this is supposedly the case.

"Blah blah blah, they aren't dicks like Shaq, blah blah blah, they don't thump their chest and scream like Kobe, blah blah blah." And so forth.

I admittedly didn't watch the full video, but I don't think it was just blah blah blah. Outside of Boston, there haven't been any teams consistently making deep playoff runs since the KD/Curry warriors. Throw shade on guys like Shaq or Kobe if you want, but those guys and consistently good teams captured fans and created rivalries, rematches, etc.

With no stars like that today (which is true, in terms of consistently making deep playoff runs), and lack of consistency from teams in terms of being staples of deep playoff runs, the league is in a lull waiting for special players/teams to emerge. It'll happen again, but title paths have generally been weak since 2019, and the playoffs have been a crapshoot. The general fan likes dominance, even if they don't realize it. It's why I strongly disagreed when top 10/5 talk was given to Giannis after his title (hes lost to every championship caliber team hes faced, and didnt face any when he won), why I disagree with Jokic GOAT posters all the time (see Giannis point) etc. The league is in a lull from a draw perspective, because there aren't players or teams you can pencil in to a deep playoff run, outside of Boston who has reached the finals or conference finals each of the last 3 years.

The stats of some guys are nice, but are inflated based on the skill of players 1-5 (which, like the video states, are more skilled now than ever), which is evidenced by the numbers a 40 year old LeBron is still putting up. Nobody outside of this board cares if a guy puts up an all time WS/48 season.

[tsherkin]

I admittedly didn't watch the full video, but I don't think it was just blah blah blah. Outside of Boston, there haven't been any teams consistently making deep playoff runs since the KD/Curry warriors. Throw shade on guys like Shaq or Kobe if you want, but those guys and consistently good teams captured fans and created rivalries, rematches, etc.

They were quite good, no doubt. And fun to watch. But the video was addressing personality in a fairly ridiculous fashion.

With no stars like that today (which is true, in terms of consistently making deep playoff runs),

Mmmm, hold up. It isn't that there aren't stars capable of that, it's that it's challenging to build teams which stay relevant. And when you do, people bitch that they are super teams and the league is screwed and they whine about no parity.

and lack of consistency from teams in terms of being staples of deep playoff runs, the league is in a lull waiting for special players/teams to emerge. It'll happen again, but title paths have generally been weak since 2019, and the playoffs have been a crapshoot. The general fan likes dominance, even if they don't realize it. It's why I strongly disagreed when top 10/5 talk was given to Giannis after his title (hes lost to every championship caliber team hes faced, and didnt face any when he won), why I disagree with Jokic GOAT posters all the time (see Giannis point) etc. The league is in a lull from a draw perspective, because there aren't players or teams you can pencil in to a deep playoff run, outside of Boston who has reached the finals or conference finals each of the last 3 years.

There are weak paths to the Finals in all eras. What did you think the West was like in the 80s? The East in the 2000s? The teams exiting the East in the 2000s were a joke.

And the stats are what you would expect from a faster league with more proficient movement, screen usage and shooting. And statistically, it's a little more like the 80s and earlier, though more for pace and ability than pace and raw minutes per game.

[UcanUwill]

The most interesting comment made so far, was 31 year old guy complaining about people in their 20s being off putting. That made me chuckle.

[hardenASG13]

I admittedly didn't watch the full video, but I don't think it was just blah blah blah. Outside of Boston, there haven't been any teams consistently making deep playoff runs since the KD/Curry warriors. Throw shade on guys like Shaq or Kobe if you want, but those guys and consistently good teams captured fans and created rivalries, rematches, etc.

They were quite good, no doubt. And fun to watch. But the video was addressing personality in a fairly ridiculous fashion.

With no stars like that today (which is true, in terms of consistently making deep playoff runs),

Mmmm, hold up. It isn't that there aren't stars capable of that, it's that it's challenging to build teams which stay relevant. And when you do, people bitch that they are super teams and the league is screwed and they whine about no parity.

and lack of consistency from teams in terms of being staples of deep playoff runs, the league is in a lull waiting for special players/teams to emerge. It'll happen again, but title paths have generally been weak since 2019, and the playoffs have been a crapshoot. The general fan likes dominance, even if they don't realize it. It's why I strongly disagreed when top 10/5 talk was given to Giannis after his title (hes lost to every championship caliber team hes faced, and didnt face any when he won), why I disagree with Jokic GOAT posters all the time (see Giannis point) etc. The league is in a lull from a draw perspective, because there aren't players or teams you can pencil in to a deep playoff run, outside of Boston who has reached the finals or conference finals each of the last 3 years.

There are weak paths to the Finals in all eras. What did you think the West was like in the 80s? The East in the 2000s? The teams exiting the East in the 2000s were a joke.

And the stats are what you would expect from a faster league with more proficient movement, screen usage and shooting. And statistically, it's a little more like the 80s and earlier, though more for pace and ability than pace and raw minutes per game.

The stars may be capable of that, but they haven't done it which is the difference. Most of the top current players (Jokic, Giannis, SGA, Luka) have lost every time they've gone against a championship level team in the playoffs. They haven't consistently made deep playoff runs. I think SGA is about to do that, but hasn't to this point. Luka is young and will probably get some good teammates in LA to give him a chance at it. I think Wemby will be that guy, but the NBA and general fan are waiting for it.

As far as the 1980s West, I'm not old enough to have watched it. But you had the Lakers dominating it, which again is what the general fan craves. The 2000s East generally had weaker teams, yes, but also won 3 of the 10 titles. And you usually had the Lakers or Spurs waiting for the East champion in the finals, consistent, great teams. We don't have that right now, and to captivate the public you need teams and players that will reliably have their team in the final 4 or finals each year, setting up rematches, chances to go back to back, etc. The revolving door of whatever team is the healthiest that year doesn't have the same luster.

[og15]

Guys, television in general is declining, just have to accept it.

Oscars drew 40 million in 2014, it was 19.5 million last year

Grammys averaged 29 million in 2014, it was16.9 million viewers in 2024.

Most cable networks in general are declining year by year.

The Superbowl is one of the few ones that is pushing through, but it actually should have even more viewing now that it does. But it is a cultural phenomenon, millions who don't care about football tune in, it's a reason to have a gathering or party, totally different situation.

What does this video argue?

It argues (not necessarily the video makers perspective, but what people think):

Best players aren't cool, controversial or hated enough for the general public to care about them

There are no super teams for people to root against

People don't like players having power and switching teams

Some people think players beating each other up a more fun, and therefore current players/league are soft, including some romanticism

People have a lot of perception that might not be reality, but perception is reality whether or not you want it to be and NBA needs to fix perception problems

Solutions:

Alternate jerseys (don't make them replace after one year). Players should look cooler.

Stars in dunk contest

All-Star game sucks

Save inside the NBA

Interestingly he actually doesn't say anything about playing style, though we hear that a lot. He talks about perception, and he's actually probably more right than we might think, and more so than a lot of the playstyle, too many three's and some of those other complaints. Why? Because if people have a perception, they will then interpret everything to support their perception, so if you determine the NBA is not as this, that or the othe, etc, etc, then you will interpret everything as fitting into that perception.

Nothing particularly exciting, but I mean, I don't know how much it will solve, and considering Inside the NBA has guys who trash whatever current league they are watching too much, I'm not sure if they help ratings in the long run. They probably help ingrain some of the perception in the general public.

[hardenASG13]

Guys, television in general is declining, just have to accept it.

Oscars drew 40 million in 2014, it was 19.5 million last year

Grammys averaged 29 million in 2014, it was16.9 million viewers in 2024.

Most cable networks in general are declining year by year.

The Superbowl is one of the few ones that is pushing through, but it actually should have even more viewing now that it does. But it is a cultural phenomenon, millions who don't care about football tune in, it's a reason to have a gathering or party, totally different situation.

What does this video argue?

It argues (not necessarily the video makers perspective, but what people think):

Best players aren't cool, controversial or hated enough for the general public to care about them

There are no super teams for people to root against

People don't like players having power and switching teams

Some people think players beating each other up a more fun, and therefore current players/league are soft, including some romanticism

People have a lot of perception that might not be reality, but perception is reality whether or not you want it to be and NBA needs to fix perception problems

Solutions:

Alternate jerseys (don't make them replace after one year). Players should look cooler.

Stars in dunk contest

All-Star game sucks

Save inside the NBA

Interestingly he actually doesn't say anything about playing style, though we hear that a lot. He talks about perception, and he's actually probably more right than we might think, and more so than a lot of the playstyle, too many three's and some of those other complaints. Why? Because if people have a perception, they will then interpret everything to support their perception, so if you determine the NBA is not as this, that or the othe, etc, etc, then you will interpret everything as fitting into that perception.

Nothing particularly exciting, but I mean, I don't know how much it will solve, and considering Inside the NBA has guys who trash whatever current league they are watching too much, I'm not sure if they help ratings in the long run. They probably help ingrain some of the perception in the general public.

Agreed Television in general is declining, there are way more entertainment options now than any era before the 2010s. Most people don't have the attention span to tune into a 3 hour sports game anymore either, especially when you can watch condensed full game highlights on demand an hour after the game is over.