This line really hit me: "People want to participate in history." The fracturing of American culture has made it so much more difficult for Americans to participate in a shared history. In that sense, "please like my sport" is "please listen to me."
If baseball fans don't care about ratings (which I'm not even sure is true btw), it's probably just because they are in the acceptance stage while NBA fans might still be in denial. I distinctly remember the fierce arguments of the late 2000s/early 2010s about whether or not MLB was dying, and the anguish over how decisively some mediocre NFL matchup just crushed a crucial World Series game. But now the ratings are so bad that everyone just accepts it and moves on.
Let's say the real things out loud about the NBA. It doesn't help the league that Milwaukee, Denver have won lately. They also don't want to say that PARITY IS BAD. Because it is. The NFL is the outlier, don't even look at that. What made the NBA 2015-2019 WAS THE WARRIORS vs. LeBron. You want CONTINUITY OF NARRATIVE. The players moving all the time MESSES UP THE STORY.
It's like seeing Han Solo in the Hobbit or Frodo in Star Wars are Spiderman in Gotham City vs. Batman.
Things need consistency and story to build with normal people. There are people who don't follow the league and wonder why the hell Durant is on the 4th team in 5 years? Or why Lebron is on the Lakers now. Normies don't pay attention. There is a reason Brady = Patriots. Farve = Packers or Jeter = Yankees. You NEED TIME to stick with the story.
Don’t think it needs to be big markets (Super Bowl winners in the last 5 years include the chiefs and the bucs) but definitely some kind of consistency helps, don’t think it helps if it’s a foregone conclusion who the final 4 is but definitely some kind of rivalries (lebron v Steph is probably the only that gets casual fans interested and they’re 39 and 36)
the big names can’t move around as often (KD example is a good one, and I wouldn’t be stunned if he went elsewhere soon) and guys who get drafted by teams who go on the journey to take them from cellar dwellers to winners (why the Steph story is more appealing than lebron, why people ended up loving dirk and why people like dame for genuinely trying to win in Portland when he really should have left yeses before he did) - in the nfl if a team has a very good/great QB they don’t tend once they get to that level until they get old (manning, favre, brady, Rodgers, Montana were late 30s/40s when they left), the NBA equivalents feel more likely to move around (KD, Lebron, Shaq) in this era in their primes
European football debunks all comments about league parity mattering. Real/Barca, Juve, Bayern, Ajax/PsV win their leagues regularly and it does not damage those competitions at all. The focus simply changes to how they win, did they win well, and will their be a challenger.
As for the NFL. It's the outlier. Small number of games + playoffs makes it very random.
Think of how different things in the EPL would be if it had playoffs?!? City would not have won all those leagues, or United and Liverpool in the past. Knockouts create parity.
I love that the epl counts the season as the goal. I think that should be celebrated in all sports. It's litterally what makes you a good team? The fact that we devalue regularly season champs is the reason these leagues in the USA (out side of the NFL) are suffering. Make the season matter. Get rid of the playoffs!!!! That would be incredible!!!
The Super League is driven by 3 clubs: Juve, Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Barcelona and Real are member owned. The administration of those clubs is like a YMCA rather than a corporation. To raise money they have to borrow. To do anything they have to borrow. Their organization structure vs the Premier League prevents them to bring efficient and growing. Their view is that they have maximized their local markets and in order to compete for the global sports pie, they need to match the revenue of the Premier League.
Hence? The Super League. It's an opportunity to create a new source of revenue (in the short term) that will allow them to maximize revenue outside of UEFA.
Two TV shows you mention a lot - Mad Men and The Bear - had/have relatively miniscule ratings compared to their cultural significance or their contemporaries. Meanwhile, everyone who is into Zeitgeisty pop culture sites like Grantland, the Ringer, Vulture, etc. has seen every episode (myself included). Yet, for all intents and purposes, no one watches these shows. For example, I may or may not work for a major media company in Hollywood and I'd say probably only about 20% of my colleagues watch "prestige television."
How does this relate to NBA ratings? I'm not entirely sure but I don't think an actual rating or a number is indicative of cultural significance. With social media, your real life friends don't even need to watch these shows because we have reddit, twitter, and this comment section to connect with. With twitter, as long as you follow the right people, every night is an active and vibrant convo about the NBA. Is this kinda sad and pathetic? Maybe, but that's where we are right now with technology and such. Just a bunch of nitche interests with their little corners of fandom on the internet.
"Why do you care?" is always the most inane, meaningless comment somebody can throw out during a discussion. It does nothing to advance a conversation, develop an argument, or deliver interesting information. It's non-dialogue, utter nothingness, and all it means is that the person saying it has nothing of substance to contribute.
Personally, I think most of the resistance to discussing falling NBA ratings / interest is from people who think they're defending the league against the Big Bad, i.e. right-wingers. These "why do you care??" types are well aware of how the NBA is linked with leftism/wokeism (even if that stereotype isn't so true anymore), and they instinctively protect it from attacks like it's one of their pets. They assume that anyone criticizing the league must be a member of The Wrong Tribe, and thus can be casually dismissed or ignored. It's all so tiring, and it leads to 0 interesting conversations.
Also, thanks for including that commercial. Goddamn was MJ cool.
Yes, I've finally made it! And Chuck did say it - he went on to give a hypothetical about talking to a guy in an airport bar about the Seattle Mariners.
Related - this is also something that is cool about college football and probably pro sports in smaller and less transient cities. When you are there, you can safely assume that everybody cares, at least a little, about the team. When you're driving to a big college town you start seeing gear everywhere for the team 30+ miles away. And you can just talk to random people about the team and assume they know what you're talking about. I never lived in a place like that, but I'd guess it's similar in places like San Antonio, KC, Cleveland, etc at least with some of their teams. It seems really fun and provides a sense of community that doesn't exist in bigger and more transient places.
College football is the most insane , poorly run, greed infested sport of all . Yet I am making plans with a good friend to see Alabama - Michigan because the amount of ego, arrogance and baggage of the teams followers puts a lot on the line and makes it compelling . Watching these nothing bowl games and seeing kids claw for extra yards , try to hold on to a lead, celebrate with eating a mascot after a big win, etc, makes it great viewing. I listen to the fantastic College Football Enquirer podcast and get the back stories on these lawsuits, legal manuevers, coaches on the hot seat and these narratives adds to the drama.
That’s awesome. But agreed the people running it are completely incompetent. The destruction of the pac 12 (as someone born in Pasadena) is a complete travesty and disaster. But the passion behind every fanbase can’t be matched in professional sports. So many unique things to every school.
I was a pac 8 honk from an early age. The Rose Bowl was my favorite “told you so” as the PAC 8 beat the big bad big 10. Stanford , Washington, UCLA, USC only lost a couple games from 71 to late 80’s and were always ranked lower.UCLA basketball was dominant and even in the early 2000’s usually PAC 10 won a few rounds every year in March Madness and now it’s all gone. Larry Scott came in and drove it off a cliff. I follow message board geniuses and yes fans are crazy on there but as you say it’s the passion that is unsurpassed in any American sport.
Exactly. For the longest time, soccer fans in the US were at the bottom of the US sports fandom food chain. As a MLS supporter that became even worse as the league didn’t garner any respect from European football fans so we would get sh*t on by all sports fans for liking an unpopular league.
At least MLS moved to Apple so we don’t have to suffer from getting beat by spelling bees and cornhole competitions on ESPN from a ratings perspective.
It bothers me that they had to have the in season players to get the players to buy in. If the league concedes that then how can it expect rapt attention at disposal games.
The NBA has more skill than ever, but, and this a question more than a criticism - is there anyone as compelling as Bird and Magic or Kobe and Shaq v. everyone.
Compelling sports is obvious. I left a formal in Lexington to watch UK and Duke in 1992 with strangers and the visiting MSU girls softball team in a hotel bar. People with no rooting interest lived and died with every possession.
Every NBA game can’t be the greatest game ever but if people aren’t watching we deep down know that people (most) don’t care and things that people don’t care about tend to go away.
I think you care about people caring because you think it might be going the way of baseball.
Ethan, your article may have instigated much of the backlash. My timeline yesterday was dominated by NBA ratings talk — many in the ‘who cares!’ camp, which I viewed as ‘doth protest too much, methinks’.
Beyond the mentioned political and racial factors, I think why NBA fans are so sensitive to discussing the reality of the current situation due to it having the most online fanbase. #NBATwitter and r/NBA are where league seeded talking points around media deals get parroted and amplified. If the expectation wasn’t set and propagated then maybe they wouldn’t be so defensive.
NBA lost juice b/c used to have personalities and rivalries. Now all the players are managed, told what to say etc so they all seem the same. Dont agree with what Kyrie says, any of it, but at least he’s interesting. And they all seem to be friends, too soft.
Outside of weird hipsters, everybody wants the thing they like to be liked by more people. When I read a great book and it becomes very popular and becomes a best seller it makes me happy. Not just because the author made money but because of that basic feeling of thinking it's cool when other people like the same things I like.
Well and it typically IS in your self interest. If it is an author, it getting popular means there is likely to be more books. If it is a band, maybe they will tour more. A sport, maybe the games will be ok more regularly.
I was thinking about this over the past day. And maybe there will be some short term delight in seeing bad takes exposed and arrogant people get their comeuppance. But if people stop caring about sports enough, past some collective inflection point, the world will be a lot poorer for it.
It really is one of the wonderful things available to us in life and there is not an easy replacement for it. As noted in some of the comments, if people don't care, it becomes hard for any of us individually to derive meaning, joy, or sadness from outcomes of games. And it really is a great thing that exists, whether it's your team or just watching something that is "high stakes". Without people caring, the stakes are nil and the experience is gone
Wonder if the lack of a questioning media has created some of the viewership decline. Scandal/fights sell, everyone saying everything is great is boring
It's odd because I think that fundamentally the NBA have an exciting product this season with what is effectively a clash of generations. I don't think this has translated into strong ratings because there's been little attempt to build new stars
I’d be happy if some of the lesser-known bands I follow hit it big and started playing sold out shows at MetLife Stadium with tickets at $150 a pop because good for them, but I’m much happier to keep seeing my favorite bands play shows at 300 person venues in Brooklyn for $50.
And similar to the Thompson HR, every Gen Xer on Long Island saw Billy Joel play at a dive bar for 25 people before he started selling out MSG
This line really hit me: "People want to participate in history." The fracturing of American culture has made it so much more difficult for Americans to participate in a shared history. In that sense, "please like my sport" is "please listen to me."
If baseball fans don't care about ratings (which I'm not even sure is true btw), it's probably just because they are in the acceptance stage while NBA fans might still be in denial. I distinctly remember the fierce arguments of the late 2000s/early 2010s about whether or not MLB was dying, and the anguish over how decisively some mediocre NFL matchup just crushed a crucial World Series game. But now the ratings are so bad that everyone just accepts it and moves on.
Let's say the real things out loud about the NBA. It doesn't help the league that Milwaukee, Denver have won lately. They also don't want to say that PARITY IS BAD. Because it is. The NFL is the outlier, don't even look at that. What made the NBA 2015-2019 WAS THE WARRIORS vs. LeBron. You want CONTINUITY OF NARRATIVE. The players moving all the time MESSES UP THE STORY.
It's like seeing Han Solo in the Hobbit or Frodo in Star Wars are Spiderman in Gotham City vs. Batman.
Things need consistency and story to build with normal people. There are people who don't follow the league and wonder why the hell Durant is on the 4th team in 5 years? Or why Lebron is on the Lakers now. Normies don't pay attention. There is a reason Brady = Patriots. Farve = Packers or Jeter = Yankees. You NEED TIME to stick with the story.
Don’t think it needs to be big markets (Super Bowl winners in the last 5 years include the chiefs and the bucs) but definitely some kind of consistency helps, don’t think it helps if it’s a foregone conclusion who the final 4 is but definitely some kind of rivalries (lebron v Steph is probably the only that gets casual fans interested and they’re 39 and 36)
the big names can’t move around as often (KD example is a good one, and I wouldn’t be stunned if he went elsewhere soon) and guys who get drafted by teams who go on the journey to take them from cellar dwellers to winners (why the Steph story is more appealing than lebron, why people ended up loving dirk and why people like dame for genuinely trying to win in Portland when he really should have left yeses before he did) - in the nfl if a team has a very good/great QB they don’t tend once they get to that level until they get old (manning, favre, brady, Rodgers, Montana were late 30s/40s when they left), the NBA equivalents feel more likely to move around (KD, Lebron, Shaq) in this era in their primes
European football debunks all comments about league parity mattering. Real/Barca, Juve, Bayern, Ajax/PsV win their leagues regularly and it does not damage those competitions at all. The focus simply changes to how they win, did they win well, and will their be a challenger.
As for the NFL. It's the outlier. Small number of games + playoffs makes it very random.
Think of how different things in the EPL would be if it had playoffs?!? City would not have won all those leagues, or United and Liverpool in the past. Knockouts create parity.
I love that the epl counts the season as the goal. I think that should be celebrated in all sports. It's litterally what makes you a good team? The fact that we devalue regularly season champs is the reason these leagues in the USA (out side of the NFL) are suffering. Make the season matter. Get rid of the playoffs!!!! That would be incredible!!!
If those competitions aren’t affected, why do the big clubs want to leave them to start a Super League?
The Super League is driven by 3 clubs: Juve, Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Barcelona and Real are member owned. The administration of those clubs is like a YMCA rather than a corporation. To raise money they have to borrow. To do anything they have to borrow. Their organization structure vs the Premier League prevents them to bring efficient and growing. Their view is that they have maximized their local markets and in order to compete for the global sports pie, they need to match the revenue of the Premier League.
Hence? The Super League. It's an opportunity to create a new source of revenue (in the short term) that will allow them to maximize revenue outside of UEFA.
Two TV shows you mention a lot - Mad Men and The Bear - had/have relatively miniscule ratings compared to their cultural significance or their contemporaries. Meanwhile, everyone who is into Zeitgeisty pop culture sites like Grantland, the Ringer, Vulture, etc. has seen every episode (myself included). Yet, for all intents and purposes, no one watches these shows. For example, I may or may not work for a major media company in Hollywood and I'd say probably only about 20% of my colleagues watch "prestige television."
How does this relate to NBA ratings? I'm not entirely sure but I don't think an actual rating or a number is indicative of cultural significance. With social media, your real life friends don't even need to watch these shows because we have reddit, twitter, and this comment section to connect with. With twitter, as long as you follow the right people, every night is an active and vibrant convo about the NBA. Is this kinda sad and pathetic? Maybe, but that's where we are right now with technology and such. Just a bunch of nitche interests with their little corners of fandom on the internet.
"Why do you care?" is always the most inane, meaningless comment somebody can throw out during a discussion. It does nothing to advance a conversation, develop an argument, or deliver interesting information. It's non-dialogue, utter nothingness, and all it means is that the person saying it has nothing of substance to contribute.
Personally, I think most of the resistance to discussing falling NBA ratings / interest is from people who think they're defending the league against the Big Bad, i.e. right-wingers. These "why do you care??" types are well aware of how the NBA is linked with leftism/wokeism (even if that stereotype isn't so true anymore), and they instinctively protect it from attacks like it's one of their pets. They assume that anyone criticizing the league must be a member of The Wrong Tribe, and thus can be casually dismissed or ignored. It's all so tiring, and it leads to 0 interesting conversations.
Also, thanks for including that commercial. Goddamn was MJ cool.
This is spot on. “Why do you care?” is what you say when you don’t have a rebuttal.
Yes, I've finally made it! And Chuck did say it - he went on to give a hypothetical about talking to a guy in an airport bar about the Seattle Mariners.
Related - this is also something that is cool about college football and probably pro sports in smaller and less transient cities. When you are there, you can safely assume that everybody cares, at least a little, about the team. When you're driving to a big college town you start seeing gear everywhere for the team 30+ miles away. And you can just talk to random people about the team and assume they know what you're talking about. I never lived in a place like that, but I'd guess it's similar in places like San Antonio, KC, Cleveland, etc at least with some of their teams. It seems really fun and provides a sense of community that doesn't exist in bigger and more transient places.
Love the college point, it’s why college football is the best haha
College football is the most insane , poorly run, greed infested sport of all . Yet I am making plans with a good friend to see Alabama - Michigan because the amount of ego, arrogance and baggage of the teams followers puts a lot on the line and makes it compelling . Watching these nothing bowl games and seeing kids claw for extra yards , try to hold on to a lead, celebrate with eating a mascot after a big win, etc, makes it great viewing. I listen to the fantastic College Football Enquirer podcast and get the back stories on these lawsuits, legal manuevers, coaches on the hot seat and these narratives adds to the drama.
That’s awesome. But agreed the people running it are completely incompetent. The destruction of the pac 12 (as someone born in Pasadena) is a complete travesty and disaster. But the passion behind every fanbase can’t be matched in professional sports. So many unique things to every school.
I was a pac 8 honk from an early age. The Rose Bowl was my favorite “told you so” as the PAC 8 beat the big bad big 10. Stanford , Washington, UCLA, USC only lost a couple games from 71 to late 80’s and were always ranked lower.UCLA basketball was dominant and even in the early 2000’s usually PAC 10 won a few rounds every year in March Madness and now it’s all gone. Larry Scott came in and drove it off a cliff. I follow message board geniuses and yes fans are crazy on there but as you say it’s the passion that is unsurpassed in any American sport.
I'm a fan of MLS (we exist) and there's a huge high self esteem / low self esteem dynamic among the fan base regarding domestic soccer's popularity.
Exactly. For the longest time, soccer fans in the US were at the bottom of the US sports fandom food chain. As a MLS supporter that became even worse as the league didn’t garner any respect from European football fans so we would get sh*t on by all sports fans for liking an unpopular league.
At least MLS moved to Apple so we don’t have to suffer from getting beat by spelling bees and cornhole competitions on ESPN from a ratings perspective.
I would like to introduce Sopan to the quarter-century of ratings threads on BigSoccer beginning in 1996.
It bothers me that they had to have the in season players to get the players to buy in. If the league concedes that then how can it expect rapt attention at disposal games.
The NBA has more skill than ever, but, and this a question more than a criticism - is there anyone as compelling as Bird and Magic or Kobe and Shaq v. everyone.
Compelling sports is obvious. I left a formal in Lexington to watch UK and Duke in 1992 with strangers and the visiting MSU girls softball team in a hotel bar. People with no rooting interest lived and died with every possession.
Every NBA game can’t be the greatest game ever but if people aren’t watching we deep down know that people (most) don’t care and things that people don’t care about tend to go away.
I think you care about people caring because you think it might be going the way of baseball.
Ethan, your article may have instigated much of the backlash. My timeline yesterday was dominated by NBA ratings talk — many in the ‘who cares!’ camp, which I viewed as ‘doth protest too much, methinks’.
Beyond the mentioned political and racial factors, I think why NBA fans are so sensitive to discussing the reality of the current situation due to it having the most online fanbase. #NBATwitter and r/NBA are where league seeded talking points around media deals get parroted and amplified. If the expectation wasn’t set and propagated then maybe they wouldn’t be so defensive.
NBA lost juice b/c used to have personalities and rivalries. Now all the players are managed, told what to say etc so they all seem the same. Dont agree with what Kyrie says, any of it, but at least he’s interesting. And they all seem to be friends, too soft.
Nobody begs you to like their sport more than a soccer fan
Outside of weird hipsters, everybody wants the thing they like to be liked by more people. When I read a great book and it becomes very popular and becomes a best seller it makes me happy. Not just because the author made money but because of that basic feeling of thinking it's cool when other people like the same things I like.
Well and it typically IS in your self interest. If it is an author, it getting popular means there is likely to be more books. If it is a band, maybe they will tour more. A sport, maybe the games will be ok more regularly.
I was thinking about this over the past day. And maybe there will be some short term delight in seeing bad takes exposed and arrogant people get their comeuppance. But if people stop caring about sports enough, past some collective inflection point, the world will be a lot poorer for it.
It really is one of the wonderful things available to us in life and there is not an easy replacement for it. As noted in some of the comments, if people don't care, it becomes hard for any of us individually to derive meaning, joy, or sadness from outcomes of games. And it really is a great thing that exists, whether it's your team or just watching something that is "high stakes". Without people caring, the stakes are nil and the experience is gone
Wonder if the lack of a questioning media has created some of the viewership decline. Scandal/fights sell, everyone saying everything is great is boring
It's odd because I think that fundamentally the NBA have an exciting product this season with what is effectively a clash of generations. I don't think this has translated into strong ratings because there's been little attempt to build new stars
I’d be happy if some of the lesser-known bands I follow hit it big and started playing sold out shows at MetLife Stadium with tickets at $150 a pop because good for them, but I’m much happier to keep seeing my favorite bands play shows at 300 person venues in Brooklyn for $50.
And similar to the Thompson HR, every Gen Xer on Long Island saw Billy Joel play at a dive bar for 25 people before he started selling out MSG