Why the In-Season Tournament Failed to Boost NBA Viewership

My theory on NBA viewership not rising despite huge IST hype

I’m ambivalent about the NBA’s Play-In tournament, but at least I can see the argument for it. It’s odd to have four teams enter this Dante's Inferno Playoff Purgatory, but the games are exciting. The public tunes in for them when the matchups are right.

The In Season Tournament (Or “NBA Cup), on other hand, continues to mystify me. It looks like the league is still seeking a purpose here, beyond just paying players to participate.

Quiet as it’s kept, the NBA’s viewership dropped 1 percent this season across ABC, ESPN and TNT. That’s not an overall cataclysm, but it’s worth noting that it was the worst NBA viewership on network TV in recorded history.

If you’re wondering why “worst network ratings ever” co-exists with “1 percent drop overall,” it’s in part because the writer’s strike resulted in the NBA getting five extra ABC games on Wednesdays. The results were well below expectations for network television, but the bigger platform of ABC still garners better numbers than what you’d get on cable.

This brings me to the following question, now that the NBA regular season is in the rearview: What, exactly, was the point of the much touted In Season Tournament? Somehow I stirred controversy by calling the experiment an overall ratings disappointment. But here we are, end of the season, and there were zero season gains in an era where Nielsen’s evolving counting system sees other sports surge. Wasn’t the point to increase regular season interest?

Because we refuse to take the simple approach here, there’s a wrinkle. While the IST viewership wasn’t especially impressive, the Final, featuring the Lakers, got a huge number. The question then is why this interest failed to spread. Why was this surge more than balanced out by declines elsewhere?

My answer to why the IST failed? Something I’ll call “sports displacement theory.” It’s the theory that, if you aren’t reducing games, you can more easily move fan interest to different parts of the season than you can grow interest overall.