What if the NBA can't stop ratings free fall without a dramatic overhaul?

[Neal Romer]

I'm not saying this is guaranteed to be the case... but what if?

First of all I personally think many of the suggested reasons for decline are misguided. Issues with playstyle are overstated IMO. Young people dont care about grandpa's "wheres the midrange??" complaints. And games can still have action/drama the way they're played now. The political aspect plays a small role, but if games were really worth watching people would overlook it. I also think youre kidding yourself if you think the entire 58% drop off from this year to that year or whatever it is are all just people who watch on streams now.

The issue really is people just have more things to watch now than guys chasing a ball for three hours every night. And especially young people who didnt grow up doing it, they just dont care. Theyre not investing that kinda time. This isnt the days when the only 'devices' in existence are a boxy television set and maybe one household desktop computer with dial-up. People have endless options and no reason to care about each individual three hour basketball game in an 82 game season. The NBA product is WAY diluted for the times.

It's *possible* the only fix to the problem requires some kind of radical overhaul. Like slicing the 82 game season in half, so that every game matters and carries weight. That's what makes football so compelling in America. Every game is basically do-or-die throughout most of the season. So people tune in to see the event, to see the spectacle. It's an occasion. It's appointment viewing. If it was on every night for 8 months, the ratings would die there too.

I'm sure the NBA will ignore the issue and milk their dying model for revenue as long as possible. Even if you improve ratings by cutting the season in half, youre obviously losing net revenue overall. So the NBA's not gonna do it. They'll keep airing a shit product nobody cares about just to enforce their new TV contracts while soaking up money from fans who attend games and feed the league money that way. They'll put the money ahead of the product for now, and that'll work for a little while. But EVENTUALLY... a change gon come.

It's got to tbh. No?

[Neal Romer]

Cliffs:

Playstyle issues are an old-people complaint, the kids dont care. Politics is a part of it but a small part. Streaming is a part of it, but a small part.

The real issue is overexposure. Too many games that go on for too long. Young people dont watch TV that way. The excess of games allows teams to justify load managing stars which contributes to dissatisfaction.

The NBA wont do shit because they can still squeeze money out of this model for now. But eventually the model will require a MAJOR overhaul or it will die.

[Kblaze8855]

The major overhaul is already happening. Theyre on Amazon and peacock starting next year. The streaming services don’t care much about ratings and in some cases don’t even run ads.

The competition is based on making your service exempt from cancellation.

Long as you have live sports someone might occasionally want access to you won’t be cancelled.

Its the one and only reason I’ve had cable all these years.

There is more money in playing Amazon against Apple for content they don’t even release ratings info for than the old model which requires cable subscription fees.

The streaming services are the long term sugar daddy.

NFL and college football are the best options but after that the nba is gonna have the most bidders for a long time.

[Neal Romer]

The major overhaul is already happening. Theyre on Amazon and peacock starting next year. The streaming services don’t care much about ratings and in some cases don’t even run ads.

The competition is based on making your service exempt from cancellation.

Long as you have live sports someone might occasionally want access to you won’t be cancelled.

Its the one and only reason I’ve had cable all these years.

There is more money in playing Amazon against Apple for content they don’t even release ratings info for than the old model which requires cable subscription fees.

The streaming services are the long term sugar daddy.

NFL and college football are the best options but after that the nba is gonna have the most bidders for a long time.


This is only a short term fix.

If theres no demand for the product, it doesnt add any value to a disney or amazon streaming service. Those companies will pay to get it *for now* because they expect there to still be interest. If those deals they made last year were being made right now after a further decline, they wouldnt be worth quite as much. I can guarantee you that.

Amazon and Apple are offering big money now based on the idea people will find their services more appealing if they include NBA game access. If people stop caring, it doesnt do those companies any good.

[Neal Romer]

In any case I personally am out until at least the trade deadline. If anything interesting happens at that point Ill prob be back to discuss.

Happy holidays everybody, may ye all be blessed with a joyous start to this new year, two thousand twenty five. I'll see you in the future!

[Neal Romer]

And actually I'll go ahead and do a password giveaway for this account shortly.

Stand by everybody!

[Carbine]

Go to 40 minutes like FIBA.

That's my fix.

[Kblaze8855]

This is only a short term fix.

If theres no demand for the product, it doesnt add any value to a disney or amazon streaming service. Those companies will pay to get it *for now* because they expect there to still be interest. If those deals they made last year were being made right now after a further decline, they wouldnt be worth quite as much. I can guarantee you that.

Amazon and Apple are offering big money now based on the idea people will find their services more appealing if they include NBA game access. If people stop caring, it doesnt do those companies any good.

They literally don’t care why you have the service. They care that you do. It’s all connected. Amazon spends a billion a season making the lord of the rings show knowing for a fact it can’t add enough subs to cover it. It’s just to maintain what they have. There is barely room for growth. It’s just creating widespread value. They want one thing everyone can’t live without.

If in 13 years when it’s up they are forced to sign for 30% of the deal about to start….that keeps the same revenue that has players set to make 60 million already.

They have kicked inflations ass while steadily reducing in ratings for 25 years.

You could buy an nba team for less than Jaylen Browns contract pretty recently and now they’re 4 billion….before this coming 12 years of even more money.

12 years is about as far out as any business can realistically expect to plan for. The worst case is still gonna be killing it. Baseball handing out 700 million dollar deals and I’ve not walked into a room to see baseball on tv in 25 years.

The non ratings revenue streams are what feeds them now.

[highwhey]

OP getting his ass handed to him so bad he's jumping ship and giving away one of his 23 accounts :lol

[3ba11]

No one listened to me for 10 years, so now you won't have a league, or at least one that anyone gives a shit about... Enjoy your fraud, victims.

[1987_Lakers]

The ratings are declining because the players who carried this league the last 10 years in LeBron, Curry, KD are all getting old.

You still have great talent like Luka, Jokic, Wemby etc but none of those guys are marketable like LeBron & Curry were.

[Axe]

You guys used to keep on bragging that this era and the last decade have been far better than the watered-down 90s. Yet as time went on, there's been a significant drop on people watching the games. It's also funny how op managed to forget that defenses being soft today is a huge factor to that.


You still have great talent like Luka, Jokic, Wemby etc but none of those guys are marketable like LeBron & Curry were.
Simple. Those guys are talented but they're not of US nationality. But it's quite possible the league would market them more if they aren't foreigners. Which is a bit hilarious since they have many championship teams who call themselves 'world champions' after winning their titles.

[Neal Romer]

And actually I'll go ahead and do a password giveaway for this account shortly.

Stand by everybody!


This part was just lulz bait to keep a few of the ISH weirdos glued to their computers refreshing the page nonstop for 5 hours trying to get their hands on this account :lol

Not that it's much of a change from what they normally do.


Merry Christmas everybody!

[MrFonzworth]

This part was just lulz bait to keep a few of the ISH weirdos glued to their computers refreshing the page nonstop for 5 hours trying to get their hands on this account :lol

Not that it's much of a change from what they normally do.


Merry Christmas everybody!

You got me. I canceled an appointment for this.

[Neal Romer]

You got me. I canceled an appointment for this.


Lmao. I swear to God I was going to name drop you specifically as one of the people who would do it. But I thought, it's the holidays, let's not make it personal with anyone. But yeah, obviously we both know you were one of the users doing exactly what I described :lol


I'm glad we can laugh about this together, Mr Farnzworth :D :cheers:

[iamgine]

NBA has dealt with this so many times. ABA, Pre Magic-Larry, MJ retiring, CBA, Covid, etc. They always survived and thrive. I don't see why today will be different.

[90sgoat]

The best time to start a competing league is now, Eurobasket should move into the US. People will laugh at this until it happens.

The best time to pick a fight with the players union is also now. Trump just won, woke is on the retreat, people are tired of spoiled rich people.

In any case, Silver is not going to be commish in 2 years, heard it here first.

[highwhey]

You got me. I canceled an appointment for this.

:oldlol:

[ILLsmak]

Every game did matter. When people stopped taking it seriously, the product suffered. It's just not good. People can spend 3 hours on fortnite or some shit haha. It's just not a good product.

-Smak

[HoopsNY]

Simple. Those guys are talented but they're not of US nationality. But it's quite possible the league would market them more if they aren't foreigners. Which is a bit hilarious since they have many championship teams who call themselves 'world champions' after winning their titles.

I think it's a combination of factors, but this isn't one of them.

The 1994 and 1995 finals ratings were significantly higher than this era's finals, and that featured a Nigerian in Hakeem over the span of 2 seasons, even after MJ had retired in '93.

Heck, the next best player in the '94 finals was a Jamaican.

[west_tip]

I'm not saying this is guaranteed to be the case... but what if?

First of all I personally think many of the suggested reasons for decline are misguided. Issues with playstyle are overstated IMO. Young people dont care about grandpa's "wheres the midrange??" complaints. And games can still have action/drama the way they're played now. The political aspect plays a small role, but if games were really worth watching people would overlook it. I also think youre kidding yourself if you think the entire 58% drop off from this year to that year or whatever it is are all just people who watch on streams now.

The issue really is people just have more things to watch now than guys chasing a ball for three hours every night. And especially young people who didnt grow up doing it, they just dont care. Theyre not investing that kinda time. This isnt the days when the only 'devices' in existence are a boxy television set and maybe one household desktop computer with dial-up. People have endless options and no reason to care about each individual three hour basketball game in an 82 game season. The NBA product is WAY diluted for the times.

It's *possible* the only fix to the problem requires some kind of radical overhaul. Like slicing the 82 game season in half, so that every game matters and carries weight. That's what makes football so compelling in America. Every game is basically do-or-die throughout most of the season. So people tune in to see the event, to see the spectacle. It's an occasion. It's appointment viewing. If it was on every night for 8 months, the ratings would die there too.

I'm sure the NBA will ignore the issue and milk their dying model for revenue as long as possible. Even if you improve ratings by cutting the season in half, youre obviously losing net revenue overall. So the NBA's not gonna do it. They'll keep airing a shit product nobody cares about just to enforce their new TV contracts while soaking up money from fans who attend games and feed the league money that way. They'll put the money ahead of the product for now, and that'll work for a little while. But EVENTUALLY... a change gon come.

It's got to tbh. No?

All good points.

I think part of the problem is that a lot of the players today are just gym rats.

Old school players who grew up playing other sports (Jordan playing baseball) or attending college for 4 years (Kareem, Duncan) just seem more interesting and well rounded people. Larry Bird was poor af, dad committed suicide, Kobe grew up in Italy, LeBron played football.....

The players now seem like the type of people who spent their entire childhood playing basketball and doing little else. This ball is life mentality is dour.

[west_tip]

When it came to his basketball career in his adolescence I think I'm right in saying that Jordans parents were very hands off. They were not helicopter parents, did not interfere with the coaches at Laney HS or UNC. Smith of course made Jordan pay his dues at Carolina, the infamous remark about not wanting to put Jordan on the cover of SI as a freshman.
Jordans time at Carolina was instrumental in shaping him.

Nowadays a player of comparable talent would have agents, hangers on, handlers from a young age and would be to an extent coddled. The end product is a robotic type of person with no real distinguishing characteristics.

[Axe]

I think it's a combination of factors, but this isn't one of them.

The 1994 and 1995 finals ratings were significantly higher than this era's finals, and that featured a Nigerian in Hakeem over the span of 2 seasons, even after MJ had retired in '93.

Heck, the next best player in the '94 finals was a Jamaican.
Well, yes. But with regards to what i pointed out earlier, what i meant was who would be the next faces in the league that can become quite as prominent as lebron or curry, not the ratings. We might see later on who more or less and it's going to be some of the international guys, albeit not to the popularity levels of the former two.

[Lakers Legend#32]

How about start the season on Christmas Day.

It makes no sense to start the season in October when you are competing against the NFL, college football and the World Series. That's a losing battle.

[ArbitraryWater]

Ive said 58 games since forever.

[ArbitraryWater]

NBA has dealt with this so many times. ABA, Pre Magic-Larry, MJ retiring, CBA, Covid, etc. They always survived and thrive. I don't see why today will be different.

Because what would you qualify as the reason for the drop this time?

[90sgoat]

When it came to his basketball career in his adolescence I think I'm right in saying that Jordans parents were very hands off. They were not helicopter parents, did not interfere with the coaches at Laney HS or UNC. Smith of course made Jordan pay his dues at Carolina, the infamous remark about not wanting to put Jordan on the cover of SI as a freshman.
Jordans time at Carolina was instrumental in shaping him.

Nowadays a player of comparable talent would have agents, hangers on, handlers from a young age and would be to an extent coddled. The end product is a robotic type of person with no real distinguishing characteristics.

Exactly.

They're all now scouted on physicals, being lanky and mobile and then learning to shoot 3s and carry-dribble.

American players don't seem to be allowed to develop as players anymore, they're just shoehorned into a prototype to most likely make the league, why they all look the same in play style.

[Soundwave]

The ratings are declining because the players who carried this league the last 10 years in LeBron, Curry, KD are all getting old.

You still have great talent like Luka, Jokic, Wemby etc but none of those guys are marketable like LeBron & Curry were.

LeBron wasn't that marketable either until he went to Miami and started his villain arc and created attention by super-teaming.

The TV ratings for the Cavs-Spurs Final were horrific, not indicative at all of a guy who was a big marketing force in the US.

[RRR3]

LeBron wasn't that marketable either until he went to Miami and started his villain arc and created attention by super-teaming.

The TV ratings for the Cavs-Spurs Final were horrific, not indicative at all of a guy who was a big marketing force in the US.
meltdown

[Soundwave]

meltdown

How's that a meltdown, that's just the literal facts, his first NBA Finals was the lowest TV ratings in like two decades.

As for what can be done now, they probably will have to inevitably neuter the 3 point shot. Whether it's a set limit of how many 3s a team can make or a change of the 3 point arc being different (no more corner 3s).

People simply don't like 3 point shooting contests, it's becoming fairly obvious at this point.

[Lebron23]

LeBron wasn't that marketable either until he went to Miami and started his villain arc and created attention by super-teaming.

The TV ratings for the Cavs-Spurs Final were horrific, not indicative at all of a guy who was a big marketing force in the US.

You were a lebron fan back in the day. When he started winning you turned on him. You are nothing but a glorified Jordan ******ger. Lebron beat better teams than MJ in the finals

[TheMan]

You were a lebron fan back in the day. When he started winning you turned on him. You are nothing but a glorified Jordan ******ger. Lebron beat better teams than MJ in the finals

Meltdown

[Axe]

LeBron wasn't that marketable either until he went to Miami and started his villain arc and created attention by super-teaming.
Because kobe was still active and trying to win rings for his team during that time, in the late 2000s. Duh.

It's during the 2010s in which kong truly started to become the face of the league.

[Soundwave]

You were a lebron fan back in the day. When he started winning you turned on him. You are nothing but a glorified Jordan ******ger. Lebron beat better teams than MJ in the finals

I'm just stating a fact, the TV ratings for the 2007 NBA Finals (Cavs-Spurs) was the lowest NBA Finals ratings since like the 70s maybe at that point?

Them's just the facts.

[Phoenix]

Just thinking aloud, should the league consider a player/executive type as its next commissioner, and if so who would make a good one? It feels like Silver will hang around until whenever he decides to retire since he's already managed to lock in mega TV deals and the players and owners are all swimming Scrooge McDuck style in massive contracts. Team values have soared, so by these metrics maybe they feel the league doesn't need change unless the profit line trends downwards.

But I feel as though the league needs a Joe Dumars type running the ship. 5 years ago I would have said Magic, who while not the most well-spoken is almost universally loved and respected by fans/players/media, and clearly successful in business, but he's already 65 and will probably be too old by the time Silver retires.

[Jasper]

The major overhaul is already happening. Theyre on Amazon and peacock starting next year. The streaming services don’t care much about ratings and in some cases don’t even run ads.

The competition is based on making your service exempt from cancellation.

Long as you have live sports someone might occasionally want access to you won’t be cancelled.

Its the one and only reason I’ve had cable all these years.

There is more money in playing Amazon against Apple for content they don’t even release ratings info for than the old model which requires cable subscription fees.

The streaming services are the long term sugar daddy.

NFL and college football are the best options but after that the nba is gonna have the most bidders for a long time.

100 % true.. but our loyalist ... will never let this billion dollar industry die(.)

[ILLsmak]

Because kobe was still active and trying to win rings for his team during that time, in the late 2000s. Duh.

It's during the 2010s in which kong truly started to become the face of the league.

Having one person win without any comp is wack. That's the main issue. Then comp just stopped altogether. Steph got it back on track for a second, but now that he's getting older, I dunno what they can do.

Wemby has potential if he doesn't break his shit, but there needs to be multiple great players. All of the stars these days have big flaws or are injury prone. Like Kawhi was a fcking beast, great player to watch, huge impact, not so marketable, but people wanted to see him get down. What does he do now? Get injured.

-Smak

[sdot_thadon]

Having one person win without any comp is wack. That's the main issue. Then comp just stopped altogether. Steph got it back on track for a second, but now that he's getting older, I dunno what they can do.

Wemby has potential if he doesn't break his shit, but there needs to be multiple great players. All of the stars these days have big flaws or are injury prone. Like Kawhi was a fcking beast, great player to watch, huge impact, not so marketable, but people wanted to see him get down. What does he do now? Get injured.

-Smak

I agree. They need to figure out how to build these guys up as stars more. Stern was masterful in that sense, Silver kinda kept running with what Stern gave him for a while. I think Silver thought focusing on foreign players would help boost the global profile even more but we still need homegrown stars for this league to hold the same command it used to. Look at how they are pretty much forced to hold on to a few old guys as ambassadors and faces of the league. Ja was supposed to a torch bearer but he may have screwed the pooch. Zion was supposed to be a next up guy as well but it's just not happening for him either. Who else has a marketable game that can be what the cameras revolve around once the old guard finally retires?

[bison]

Per NBA Communications


The NBA delivered its most-watched Christmas Day in five years, with viewership up 84% vs. last year across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, Disney+ and ESPN+. The NBA on Christmas Day averaged 5.25 million viewers per game in the U.S.

The matchup between the
@Lakers
and
@Warriors
– the most-watched NBA regular season and Christmas Day game in five years – averaged 7.76 million viewers and peaked with 8.32 million viewers.