Podcasters Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo had OutKick on their minds over the weekend while enjoying what they called one of the greatest “24-hour stretches” in recent NBA history.
“Yeah, Clay Travis, how about tweeting about the ratings,” Russillo said about the weekend’s fun.
“Get Bobby Burack on that one,” Simmons replied.
While I am on it and would write about the ratings, I am currently focused on the NBA admitting it missed two game-changing, should-have-been fouls in the waning moments of Sunday’s Knicks-Pistons and Lakers-Wolves games.
The missed fouls were inexcusable and raise questions about the integrity of NBA basketball. At least in real sports, like the NFL and college football, the refs stay out of the action and let the players on the field decide the outcomes.
We are teasing. Take a deep breath, aggregators and strange Substack writers.
In all seriousness, has any media company been more accurate in covering the state of the NBA than OutKick? We were the only outlet on the internet warning that fans would eventually turn on the NBA if star players continued to sit out games for rest, embrace liberal politics, and treat regular-season games like a burden.
And, oh, did the fans even turn.
Overall, NBA viewership is down 48% since 2012 and 75% since the Jordan era. Moreover, four of the five lowest-rated NBA Finals of the past 30 years have occurred in the past four years.
Not great.
Even the NBA’s own coaches have discussed the viewership decline this season.
“I would rather watch something else,” Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla half-jokingly told reporters in December. “I don’t watch NBA games. So I’m just as much the problem as anyone else is. I don’t like watching the games.”
“I don’t think we … have done a good job of storytelling, of celebrating the game,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said earlier this year, when asked about the declines. “If I’m a casual fan and you tell me every time I turn on the television that the product sucks, well, I’m not going to watch the product. And that’s really what has happened over the last 10 to 15 years. I don’t know why. It’s not funny to me.”
Colin Cowherd, a mutual friend of OutKick and The Ringer, put it best by recently comparing the NBA to the Democratic Party.
“Adam Silver’s solution is let’s make the courts brighter. It is a really bad look for a family of four to go to a game and the [stars] don’t play, Cowherd said. “Go ask the Democrats. Be warned, once you detach from regular people in America, you will pay a price.”
Even some of the NBA’s biggest fanboys have acknowledged the ratings concerns. Here’s Bill Simmons discussing the issue in December:
“So I don’t really know what the answer is,” Simmons said bout the declines. “You could go glass half-full, glass half-empty on it, but the fact the Steph-LeBron game was so good, and sucked up so much oxygen from the day, it’s actually kind of part of the problem.”
….
Further, OutKick predicted that the Lakers’ shock trade for Luka Doncic in February would be the shot in the arm the NBA needed. And it was.
The nationally televised games featuring Doncic and the Lakers nearly wiped away ESPN’s 28% year-over-year decline earlier in the season. The first weekend of this season’s NBA Playoffs was up 17% compared to last year.
See, unlike most recent NBA storylines, the Doncic saga took place on the court–not on X, in the race wars, Stephen A’s podcast, or during free agency. Make basketball about basketball again, and people will watch.
Well, at least some people will watch.
The NBA still trails WWE most weeks in viewership. And about 10 shows on Fox News, live cut-ins of Trump signing more executive orders, random college football games featuring obscure schools in the Midwest, and “Ice Road Truckers.”
But other than that, Americans are riveted by playoff matchups like last night’s 138-83 thriller between the Cavs and Heat.
