OT: NBA TV Ratings Way Down, Some Blaming Lebron to LA
NBA ratings way down on Turner (22%) and down 5% on ESPN to date. Lebron to LA is hurting them in primetime in East, Central time zones.
https://nypost.com/2019/01/17/lebron-james-lakers-move-is-crippling-the-nbas-tv-ratings/
The NBA needs to take a page out of NCAA and pro football's play-book... scale back the season to 40 some games, make the match-ups dominated around weekends (Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night games only) and holidays, get rid of All-Star game break until after postseason, bring back one-and-done in first round of playoffs, make playoff seeding regardless of conference, and overall increase the drama and rivalries to increase the viewership.
They won't though. And when Lebron leaves... buh-bye big money contracts to guys riding the bench for 38 minutes a night.
January 18th, 2019 at 7:51 AM ^
I've found the NBA to be unwatchable for the past several years
January 18th, 2019 at 8:12 AM ^
Garbage product, garbage ratings.
January 18th, 2019 at 9:04 AM ^
Came to this thread to see the garbage NBA takes, and wow are there even more then I thought there'd be. This thread is basically a massive NBA sucks circle jerk.
January 18th, 2019 at 9:07 AM ^
1st half of the NBA season has to contend with both college football and NFL. 2nd half will probably post higher ratings - plus the season is just long enough to not care about it before the all star break.
January 18th, 2019 at 9:17 AM ^
I don’t know about the Lebron effect, but I was a huge NBA fan growing up and now find it dull. Too much one on one.
January 18th, 2019 at 9:42 AM ^
I think you're thinking of the late 90s, early 2000s NBA. The current NBA has many teams that play extremely unselfishly.
One on one =/= selfish basketball. And even so one on one basketball can be so effective in the NBA because the players are just that good.
January 18th, 2019 at 11:05 AM ^
Didn't James Harden just post consecutive 50-point games without any of his field goals being assisted? That's got to be boring for his teammates just as much as the fans at home.
January 18th, 2019 at 9:39 AM ^
Pro sports discussions on this blog are so frustrating. Just horrible bad takes everywhere from people who at the same time claim to not watch. How the fuck you know what play looks like if you haven't watched in a decade?
January 18th, 2019 at 4:51 PM ^
Agreed. This thread gave me a headache.
January 18th, 2019 at 10:20 AM ^
I mean they don't need to blow anything up, they were doing fantastic until this year. This ain't a sport in crisis.
But yeah, ratings are being hurt by the fact that there's no east coast timeslot teams worth watching. They're all trash who will be swept by the western conference champion, even if some WC team got lucky and beat Golden State due to an injury or what have you. There's not a single team in the east that would be as high as a 6 seed in the west, and everyone knows it.
I would say the best solution is blowing up conferences altogether, playing a balanced schedule and picking the 16 best teams regardless of geography. That way, the teams in the East that perpetually suck but limp into the playoffs would all be lottery teams and have a chance to actually get the kinds of players that could turn them around. The Eastern weakness has been around basically since Jordan retired, and it's just gotten slowly worse because its harder for Eastern conference teams to end up with high lottery picks because you can get an 8 seed with such a shitty team. An EC team looking to actually get good draft talent basically has to do a 76ers, but that can backfire and make you the Orlando Magic.
January 21st, 2019 at 1:02 AM ^
warriors still get good ratings
January 21st, 2019 at 12:18 PM ^
Let teams play defense.
Call traveling.
Call moving screens.