Finally someone in the national eye says what I have been saying for years. There is alot of reasons why NBA viewership is down, as articulated by others in this thread but IMHO the biggest reason is because the regular season doesn't matter and people will find something to watch that does.
When the playoffs start I bet you see viewership increase significantly but if it doesn't then they got larger issues.
Shorten the season and start the season on Christmas. The best regular season in recent NBA history was the strike shorten season several years ago. Make the regular season great again!
"I think we need to seriously consider starting on Christmas because listen you're wasting your time going up against the NFL and College Football, they own the weekends now... We'd have the entire calendar to ourself."
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Yeah, my druthers is eliminating it.
But some of the most marketed stars in the NBA right now are sharp-shooters. They won't do that.
Guys like Ball, Edwards, Tatum, hell someone like Doncic or Wemby -- those guys are guys the league markets the hell out of and they're taking 10 three pointers/gm.
Need to be careful how it’s done but it’s doing more harm than good. But Ant is a perfect example of that. The dude is a dynamic going to the basket and because of analytics he’s chucking up 10+ threes a game. Boston games are completely unwatchable because they shoot so many 3s that they’re either blowing out or getting blown out, and nothing in between.
All of those guys above have diverse enough games that they can find lots of other exciting ways to score. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BWillie:
Absolutely. Great thing NBA has done for regular season monotony.
Other than sports talk radio, never heard anyone talk
About it. None of my sports crazed friends did. I didn’t
Feel like to grabbed the public consciousness at all. [Reply]
Originally Posted by dirk digler:
Finally someone in the national eye says what I have been saying for years. There is alot of reasons why NBA viewership is down, as articulated by others in this thread but IMHO the biggest reason is because the regular season doesn't matter and people will find something to watch that does.
When the playoffs start I bet you see viewership increase significantly but if it doesn't then they got larger issues.
Shorten the season and start the season on Christmas. The best regular season in recent NBA history was the strike shorten season several years ago. Make the regular season great again!
"I think we need to seriously consider starting on Christmas because listen you're wasting your time going up against the NFL and College Football, they own the weekends now... We'd have the entire calendar to ourself."
I think regular season matters plenty. There are factors outside of this that make reg season games meaningless.
First silver has gotta figure this injury report shit out. Even the best teams are tanking games left and right because they’re aggressively managing minutes for their stars. Of course a fan is going to think a regular season game is bs when they travel hours to see a game only for their favorite player to benched for a hangnail a few minutes before tip. That goes as well for nba coaches who throw in the towel with a full quarter to go.
Coaches giving up games like this is also way more likely to happen because of shot chucking. Teams either blow out or get blown out early depending on if they’re hot or cold with their shot chucking. Also because the nba gets greedy with scheduling and constantly sign up back to back to back travel days. So most teams nowadays pick 1 of those days to “tank” to save up for games that matter.
Schedule games more logically and with player rest and safety in mind. Do something, anything, to curb blowouts. Force teams to cut this shit out with shady injury report practices. Maybe even consider less playoff teams to add more skin to the game. [Reply]
Analytics nerds took control of basically every NBA organization in the quest for efficiency. Same thing happened in baseball over the course of several decades after Moneyball and it ruined the viewing experience (too many strikeouts/over shifting/massive reliever usage/far longer games, etc.).
MLB has begun the process of taking it back from them and the NBA now needs to do the same. [Reply]
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
Analytics nerds took control of basically every NBA organization in the quest for efficiency. Same thing happened in baseball over the course of several decades after Moneyball and it ruined the viewing experience (too many strikeouts/over shifting/massive reliever usage/far longer games, etc.).
MLB has begun the process of taking it back from them and the NBA now needs to do the same.
I do think it's funny that the 'analytics nerds' finally figured out what we knew 25 years ago playing video games.
I coulda told you after a season on NBA Live for my Super Nintendo that firing 3 pointers was the way to put up 130+ points. It's simple math.
The only thing that surprises me is that it took this long for the NBA decisionmakers to figure it out. Maybe it was just a shortage of shooters? And now, a generation later, all of us kids that learned to bomb away have kids we taught to shoot? [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
I do think it's funny that the 'analytics nerds' finally figured out what we knew 25 years ago playing video games.
I coulda told you after a season on NBA Live for my Super Nintendo that firing 3 pointers was the way to put up 130+ points. It's simple math.
The only thing that surprises me is that it took this long for the NBA decisionmakers to figure it out. Maybe it was just a shortage of shooters? And now, a generation later, all of us kids that learned to bomb away have kids we taught to shoot?
NBA Jam was literally all dunks and threes. Midway knew what it was all about.
I think it took a while for front offices to take full control of the in-game strategies and processes just like baseball but now they have (many NBA head coaches today are now little more than conduits for the GMs). Also, the Steph/Klay Warriors of a decade ago no doubt had an influence on what we're seeing today too. If you can't shoot 3s now (regardless of your size), you almost can't hold a spot in the NBA. [Reply]
Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501:
I think regular season matters plenty. There are factors outside of this that make reg season games meaningless.
First silver has gotta figure this injury report shit out. Even the best teams are tanking games left and right because they’re aggressively managing minutes for their stars. Of course a fan is going to think a regular season game is bs when they travel hours to see a game only for their favorite player to benched for a hangnail a few minutes before tip. That goes as well for nba coaches who throw in the towel with a full quarter to go.
Coaches giving up games like this is also way more likely to happen because of shot chucking. Teams either blow out or get blown out early depending on if they’re hot or cold with their shot chucking. Also because the nba gets greedy with scheduling and constantly sign up back to back to back travel days. So most teams nowadays pick 1 of those days to “tank” to save up for games that matter.
Schedule games more logically and with player rest and safety in mind. Do something, anything, to curb blowouts. Force teams to cut this shit out with shady injury report practices. Maybe even consider less playoff teams to add more skin to the game.
Not disagreeing with your individual points but all those collectively is why the regular season doesn't matter. They don't load manage in the playoffs and you don't see NFL teams load manage players either. Shit Pat has a high ankle sprain and is once again going to play.
In the end there is just to many games so people don't give a shit to watch meaningless basketball Oct-Dec and probably through April. You have to make these regular season games mean something. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Pitt Gorilla:
Yay, early 90's Knicks. Everyone would LOVE that! Ewing, Smith, Oakley, and Mason! SO MUCH FUN!!11
Yeah, Riley's Knicks/Heat teams were just brutal to watch as well. I'd prefer a happy medium. Jordan's Bulls and Shaq's Lakers were must see TV so something similar to that. [Reply]
Originally Posted by dirk digler:
Not disagreeing with your individual points but all those collectively is why the regular season doesn't matter. They don't load manage in the playoffs and you don't see NFL teams load manage players either. Shit Pat has a high ankle sprain and is once again going to play.
In the end there is just to many games so people don't give a shit to watch meaningless basketball Oct-Dec and probably through April. You have to make these regular season games mean something.
I just think a lot of this is avoidable if silver actually did something. The injury designation stuff is an embarrassment right now. And the nba plays a huge part of that by bizarre scheduling that’s horrible on players bodies. It doesn’t entirely solve the problem but those would go a long way toward making games watchable. [Reply]