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<shrug> Casuals are hard to predict.
By the numbers: Through Nov. 22, games were averaging 1.45 million viewers across ESPN and TNT, down 18% from the same point last year (1.75 million).
Potential reasons:
On-court stuff: Load management has soured fans on the relative unimportance of the regular season (the NBA denies that it's an issue, citing that no player has missed a national TV game this year due to load management or rest); Kevin Durant and Zion Williamson are injured; the Warriors' dynasty is dead; LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard play on the West Coast.
Fandom shift: As much fun as the free agency madness has been in recent years, it may have hurt the NBA ratings-wise by turning fans' attention away from basketball and winning and towards rumors and off-court drama.
Cord-cutting: "Ratings are down because all of our national broadcasts are exclusively available on cable, which is losing subs daily," tweeted Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. "Football benefits from being on broadcast TV, which is in every digital and traditional package."
The NBA's response:
Schedule changes: To spark fan interest, the NBA and the players' union are in "serious talks" about adding (1) a midseason tournament similar to those used in European soccer and (2) a play-in tournament for the final two playoff spots in each conference.
YouTube crackdown: The league has cracked down on YouTube creators for using unlicensed videos, a move that threatens the quasi-legal world of NBA highlight channels.
Worth noting: The NBA has been considering scheduling changes and cracked down on YouTube accounts for several years, so those aren't necessarily knee-jerk reactions to the ratings decline.
<shrug> Casuals are hard to predict.
Who wants to watch teams shoot 45 threes a game. s the same as LA Fitness
cable cutters
Load Management
James Harden
loads of reason why People are disinterested.
Load management and quite frankly people are getting tired of seeing these guys make the type of money they do. I think that has something to do with it too.
Even if the league was early to mid 90s basketball with dominant post scoring, halfcourt execution, fewer chuckfests, and hard fouls with no abundance of pussy flagrant every game, the NBA was bound to take a dip in interest league wide in the regular season. American cultural evolution. Kids got way more interesting to do than to sit down and watch 3-4+ NBA games a week in their entirety. Same with baseball and hockey. Kids gotta work on perfecting those Fortnite dances, don’t they? And if it weren’t for the far fewer games and fantasy football, I’d say the same about the NFL. In fact I wouldn’t be shocked that at some point Monday night and Thursday night NFL loses a lot of interest too.
Fans care about the post season and really huge national marquee match-ups. Certainly not for example a Wizards-Kings game on a Thursday night in December.
That’s one thing you can say about Soccer worldwide. For the most part, they should always have high interest, especially in live attendance. There ain’t else to live for in those bunk ass third world countries. Go shoot 1970 American rifles at sandstones or watch a soccer game? Have sex with your wife to have your 14th starving kid or go root for your Querkekistan Hijabs and throw firecrackers at your centuries old religious rivals at your broken down stadium made of sticks and glue? Yes! Futbol! Futbol! Futbol!
More kids played outside back in the day, and whether they sucked or not, they dreamed being their sports hero. So many kids these days don’t even go outside. Also, the guys of yesterday were more mythic because you only saw them on tv once in awhile and didn’t know everything little thing about them because of social media. They follow these guys and don’t even need to watch the games.
The Frauden Effect
blaming Harden when Houston is one of their top 2 biggest TV draws
Plus it’s easy to catch highlights the same night on YouTube : Freedawkins, MLG Highlights, Ximo Pierto
i think the nba needs to move the 3pt line back further...too many fkn morons chucking 3s
The nba just isn’t a very good product overall:
1) little variation in styles of play
2) overly simple where coaching hardly matters anymore as offensive talent is the only key to winning
3) no rivalries
4) no belonging. Who’s the superstar who’s still playing with the team that drafted him? Doncic, and that’s because he’s a second year player. Others line lillard and wall are either walking injuries or can’t carry his team
On top of that, the nba has to compete with a huge amount of other entertainment options. Kids can look up things online, gaming, chatting with friends on the phone, YouTube videos, tinder, all kinds of stuff that just weren’t available 10 years ago.
The nba alienated old fans by being more and more gimmicky, while doesn’t have the entertainment value in drawing the new fans in.
I mean, who plays outdoors basketball anymore? Kids are busy doing other things and nba is just far down the list.
Who cares what casual fans think? The NBA has the best parity in decades, which should make people happy, but no! The same people who complained about the dominance of the Warriors are now complaining that the Warriors aren't around. If you have thousands of posts on a basketball website and you're constantly posting that basketball sucks, well... have fun with that.
I think it has something to do with Time Zone.... The best SuperStars are on the West so people in the East need to stay up late in order to watch.... In New York games start as late as midnight, or 1230 in the morning.
MLB had and currently NFL is enjoying a strong season. NFL is experiencing a ratings resurgence.
I am not sure parity is good when as Armchang explained - the product and teams are iden y-less. Parity should spur on rivalries but it doesn't seem to be.
I think the League is too player focused especially when combined with all the player movement. It makes the franchises and cities obsolete. History and traditions are still important to the average fans. The current product is bordering on XFL
The fake Warriors fans stopped watching.
No more real bad blood rivalries. I used to love watching Knicks vs Heat or Pacers or Bulls just bc of all the bad blood.
But in reality it's 100% the PLAYERS fault. Here's a list of ever star who has said regular season games aren't important: Curry, Lebron, Harden, Westbrook, Durant, Green, Kawhi, George, Kyrie, etc. Basically every top star in the league. After every loss (or Load Management) that is their go to excuse. Long season, one game doesn't mean anything. Playoffs are where it counts. It's extremely stupid marketing by the players.
No they didn't. They went back to being Laker "fans" again.
Actually, it starts with the fans and the media. Players are just responding to the narrative that playoffs and rings are the only thing that matters. You can't reduce a player's whole legacy to just a few games in April, May and June and then expect them to care about meaningless games in November and December.
As far as responses to that narrative go, I'll gladly take load management over the cowardly move that Durbeta made any day of the week.
Everyone hates Houston. Ofcrosue its a draw in houston...but its definitely not for non houston fans
Bascially this.
What a loser response. That media narrative has been around forever and you didn't see players come out and say that their job was meaningless. All the top stars of today come out and say that regular season doesn't matter. I don't remember the majority of top stars saying that in the 90s or the early 2000s
But back in the day, there wasn’t a 24/7 social media cycle where a clip of someone talking about a certain player not having rings got retweeted 50k times, and then memes are made out of it. Back in the day, if you missed the tv or radio show, you missed the comment and that was that.
Nowadays, a homie from the hood can have a talking take about player X on social media and every will know about it. nowadays they can talk directly to the player every day.
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