NBA crisis over declining TV ratings and why China is so important: "stagnant since 1998"

[Raw Lyrics]

The NBA still not over putting all of their eggs into one MJ basket after damn near two decades.

I've been telling yall this since SOHH 00'

Garbage marketing of individual players over teams created this problem.

They put their eggs in two baskets during the 80s - Magic and Bird. Before that it was Wilt and Russell, the NBA always marketed stars over everything else.

 

[Raw Lyrics]

NBA has been a stars league going all the way back to Mikan in the ‘50s

Basketball by nature leads itself to star players the same way football leads itself to teamwork and self sacrifice.

Marketing stars to draw interest of casuals isn’t new, but Stern overdid it with MJ at the expense of the league. Now MJ’s legacy is a bloated caricature of itself.

Exactly.

 

[HandyWithTheSteel]

People want to see competition.

Every NFL game players are competing like crazy. If they don't, they're gonna get killed or have one of their teammates killed.

That's why the NCAA tournament get crazy ratings because viewers get to see athletes compete like crazy.

Watching regular season NBA games is like watching a scrimmage. They're just out there going through the motions until 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter.

If the NBA can bottle up the last 5 minutes in the 4th quarter of a game and have players compete like that for the entirety of the game then it would rise in popularity.

Nobody actually cares about NCAA until March Madness.

This is the problem with modern sports fans and society in general. People have no attention span whatsoever. Nobody wants to watch regular season games anymore and they’ll just say “wake me up when it’s the playoffs”.

People complain that baseball is boring. NBA is boring until the playoffs. Golf is boring unless Tiger is playing, etc.... Everything is boring to people nowadays. People have zero fukking attention span.

 

[dh86]

Just like the NFL the NBA adds more stoppages in play every year giving people more of a chance to look in their phone to find other things to do. Replay, coaches challenge, time outs, fouls, fake ass “drama” every last two minutes. They need to wrap these games up. Otherwise people will just look at the box score when the games over and see all the highlights they need on IG

 

[dh86]

michael Jordan is far and away the greatest most accomplished most marketable basketball player of all time. Failing to not market him like they did would have caused more damage and the nba would not have flourished in the 90s and 2000s.

You cannot overhype someone as dominant as a Michael Jordan.

Using a player that first retired at 30 is a terrible example for what you’re getting at.

 

[dh86]

Nobody actually cares about NCAA until March Madness.

This is the problem with modern sports fans and society in general. People have no attention span whatsoever. Nobody wants to watch regular season games anymore and they’ll just say “wake me up when it’s the playoffs”.

People complain that baseball is boring. NBA is boring until the playoffs. Golf is boring unless Tiger is playing, etc.... Everything is boring to people nowadays. People have zero fukking attention span.

That’s why I say the games itself has to be much more consumer friendly and needs to be wrapped up in 2 hours. I remember idiots on here defending hack a dre when it was shown fans were turning the channel when players hacked bad FT shooters fukking up playoff games

 

[Raw Lyrics]

Nobody actually cares about NCAA until March Madness.

This is the problem with modern sports fans and society in general. People have no attention span whatsoever. Nobody wants to watch regular season games anymore and they’ll just say “wake me up when it’s the playoffs”.

People complain that baseball is boring. NBA is boring until the playoffs. Golf is boring unless Tiger is playing, etc.... Everything is boring to people nowadays. People have zero fukking attention span.

Fax, everbody doing...

 

[FTBS]

The NFL aint struggling for ratings because they put as many games as possible on free over the air tv. The NBA needs to start showing primetime games on one of the networks. It's that simple. An NFL fan doesn't need Cable or any paid network to get full coverage of the league. NBA fans you're going to either have to PURCHASE cable or PURCHASE a league pass subscription or go the reddit stream route.

NBA has games on the weekends on free TV. None of the big 4 are gonna forego their primetime programming in the middle of the week for the NBA. It's 2019, people are not dependent on free TV to see what they WANT to see.

 

[CodeBlaMeVi]

So if viewership is down...where is the story about advertising rates being down and the networks making less money? Cause I haven't seen that story yet...

I don’t know but ad space fluctuates, daily or weekly.

If a show has 1 million viewers one week and 250 thousand the next, the rates are not the same. Advertising firms negotiate those deals because it will eat into their profits.

 

[tremonthustler1]

Just like the NFL the NBA adds more stoppages in play every year giving people more of a chance to look in their phone to find other things to do. Replay, coaches challenge, time outs, fouls, fake ass “drama” every last two minutes. They need to wrap these games up. Otherwise people will just look at the box score when the games over and see all the highlights they need on IG

Man I’ve seen fans in close games take selfies just to say they were there. People are just wired differently now.

At home, I can see someone changing the channel during a stoppage, get hooked on some other shyt and forget the game.

 

[8WON6]

NBA has games on the weekends on free TV. None of the big 4 are gonna forego their primetime programming in the middle of the week for the NBA. It's 2019, people are not dependent on free TV to see what they WANT to see.

FOX just put WWE on TV. The NBA could get on. CBS still showing Survivor. NBA games can beat that. Hell the NBA could get a deal with one of those MyTV type of networks.It's just a matter of showing more free games over them rabbit ears.

 

[jaguar paw]

Durant. Curry. Now Giannis.

 

[NYC Rebel]

They put their eggs in two baskets during the 80s - Magic and Bird. Before that it was Wilt and Russell, the NBA always marketed stars over everything else.

Lakers and Celtics history still carried as much interest. And CBS also wasnt so player first heavy.

 

[FTBS]

FOX just put WWE on TV. The NBA could get on. CBS still showing Survivor. NBA games can beat that. Hell the NBA could get a deal with one of those MyTV type of networks.It's just a matter of showing more free games over them rabbit ears.

Fox and CBS could have struck a deal with the NBA but they didn't. You think the NBA is turning down huge deals for weekday content from these networks. If the interest was there it would be happening. ABC has the rights and you don't see them doing anything during the week. TNT and ESPN are way more widely known than MyTV or any of those other offshoot networks.

 

[PortCityProphet]

When the division doesn't matter, neither does the regular season.

And when the regular season doesn't matter folks just wait for the playoffs.

NFL : 6 division games out of 16 = 37.5% You have to win your division.

MLB : 76 division games out of 162 = 46.9% You have to win your division

NBA : 16 division games out of 82 = 19.5% You can go 0-16 and still be a 66 win team.

There's no need for a Bulls team in 2018 to play 2 games against The Warriors.

Work on winning your division. -- but divisions don't matter.

It's just about getting to the playoffs and since you play teams indiscriminately almost, no one team is truly in your way.

In Baseball, we kept the Cubs out of the playoffs, we had 4 games in Chicago and we swept them. We ended their season.

That doesn't really happen in an NBA regular season, there aren't enough division games for the Bucks to put their foot on the Pacers necks.

Man im glad you said this. I've always had an issue with how meaningless the divisions are in the league. They're absolutely pointless.
You dont even get rivalries inner division.
They should get rid of divisions and cut the number of playoff teams.
So it's the whole east/west 1-6 from day 1.
I get from a fan experience you wanna give every fan a chance to see every team at home but there isnt a reason for each team to play eachother twice a year.