Quote:The NBA has suffered another ratings disaster, with ABC falling 45 percent since the 2011-12 season, while TNT was down 40 percent, and ESPN was off 20 percent.

This ratings tumble is nothing new, granted. The past two NBA finals each have fallen one over the other, with last year’s down 51 percent to an all-time low for the championships. The worst was the final game, off nearly 70 percent year-over-year.

So far, the average viewership for the league’s games is only 2.83 million, according to The Athletic. For comparison, recent episodes of the NBC crime drama, The Blacklist, average about 3.3 million viewers, while one of ABC’s biggest shows, medical drama, The Good Doctor, averages just over four million per week. Historically, sports out earns any regular TV series.

The NBA’s collapse may not be surprising in light of recent polls finding that basketball fans feel that the league has become far too wrapped up in politics.

In September, a Harris poll found that 39 percent of respondents who identified as sports fans felt that the NBA had become too political, and 19 percent said that they had turned off pro basketball because of the NBA’s deep links to China.

In 2020, the NBA’s coronavirus season in the bubble launched with heavy-handed paeans to the anti-American Black Lives Matter agenda. But reactions to those displays of leftism may have alarmed NBC Commissioner Adam Silver because the league boss claimed that this season would dispense with the more overt displays of support for BLM.

“My sense is there’ll be somewhat a return to normalcy, that those messages will largely be left to be delivered off the floor. And, I understand those people who are saying, ‘I’m on your side, but I want to watch a basketball game,'” Silver said last October.

Still, if the ratings for the 2021 season are any indication, Silver’s realizations may have come too late.

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If things get bad, the players can fall back on they Electrical Engineering degrees they got in college.

Learn to code.

(04-18-2021 05:32 PM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  If things get bad, the players can fall back on the Electrical Engineering degrees they got in college.

Heh.

I am honestly curious how long the gravy train can run on time when in-person attendance and TV-ratings are both a fraction of what they were in the past.

Folks better start watching or LeBozo James will call you racist

it's just not a good game to watch, 5 guys throwing the ball around the perimeter until somebody jacks up a 3. It's like watching a game of H-O-R-S-E.

Remember all those threads about NFL ratings decreases and how the league was dead because of the kneeling and political stuff? Their $43.5 billion deal with the networks just expired, and they re-upped for $89.5 billion ($105 billion when you throw in Amazon).

That’s a nice story about ratings being down big from 2011-12, but everything is down big from 2011-12.

The NBA is popular with kids and young adults (the demographics that matter to advertisers), and popular globally, and the Nielsen ratings might not be the best metric to reflect that (what a shock)!

NBA is going to sign a new media deal in about a year. Please bump this thread. You guys are going to be very disappointed.

Current deal is $24 billion total and there is talk right now that the next one could triple it to over $70 billion. I don’t think it’s going to be that high, but it’s going to be a massive increase and should at least double the current deal.

TL;DR version: the NBA is doing just fine.

(04-18-2021 05:41 PM)BuffaloTN Wrote:  Learn to code.

Or how to make solar panels.........

(04-19-2021 06:45 AM)HappyAppy Wrote:  Remember all those threads about NFL ratings decreases and how the league was dead because of the kneeling and political stuff? Their $43.5 billion deal with the networks just expired, and they re-upped for $89.5 billion ($105 billion when you throw in Amazon).

That is a classic form of FOMO.... The cost per eyeball is rising exponentially and while a lot has to do with what they are paying - even more has to do with the shrinking base. It seems that ratings are dropping for almost everything for the most part, not just sports viewers.

This NFL contract will is going to be a huge regret of all the networks in two years. They will still have the better/best overall ratings but the number of eyeballs will still likely be much less.

The next round of contracts are going to very very different as these leagues will lose all of their leverage with pisspoor ratings.

(04-19-2021 07:01 AM)Eldonabe Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 06:45 AM)HappyAppy Wrote:  Remember all those threads about NFL ratings decreases and how the league was dead because of the kneeling and political stuff? Their $43.5 billion deal with the networks just expired, and they re-upped for $89.5 billion ($105 billion when you throw in Amazon).

That is a classic form of FOMO.... The cost per eyeball is rising exponentially and while a lot has to do with what they are paying - even more has to do with the shrinking base. It seems that ratings are dropping for almost everything for the most part, not just sports viewers.

This NFL contract will is going to be a huge regret of all the networks in two years. They will still have the better/best overall ratings but the number of eyeballs will still likely be much less.

The next round of contracts are going to very very different as these leagues will lose all of their leverage with pisspoor ratings.

We will see. You are definitely right about the cost per eyeball rising exponentially. Viewership is much more segmented now vs 10 years ago with all these streaming services, but content is king and that means they are still paying top dollar for content just because there is so much competition now. Amazon is paying nearly half a billion to produce 1 season of a Lord of the Rings show. Netflix is paying nearly half a billion for the rights to two Knives Out sequels.

Who knows what the landscape will look like 10 years from now, but sports have a lot of built in advantages. I’ve been hearing for years that these numbers are not sustainable, but they keep going up. $55 million a year for the SEC seemed crazy in the mid 2000’s, and they just signed a new deal for $300 million a year with viewership going down.

(04-18-2021 06:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  it's just not a good game to watch, 5 guys throwing the ball around the perimeter until somebody jacks up a 3. It's like watching a game of H-O-R-S-E.

Baseball is way too slow - those games are marathons. That said, the 7 inning double headers are almost bearable.

But Basketball is just a horrible watching experience. First you have to listen to all these people who think they are more important than they are with their social justice BS, then the game they play is just selfish, egotistical hero ball. I have not watched a pro hoop game on years and I don't miss it a bit. I can watch Miss Valley State play Appalachian state in college 7 days a week though.

Streaming services have much to do with cable/ network ratings declines yet much to do with increases in money paid for media rights...

(04-18-2021 06:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  it's just not a good game to watch, 5 guys throwing the ball around the perimeter until somebody jacks up a 3. It's like watching a game of H-O-R-S-E.

And unfortunately many of the "stars" of the NBA are just horse's a$$es. Makes it even less palatable to watch.