You’re not even mentioning how these numbers are being juiced by aggregating simulcasts. It’s quite notable with the NBA on Christmas Day where 1.7 of the 5 million people were watching on ESPN. It’s a little conspicuous that the ESPN altcast was getting 50% of the viewers the ‘main’ broadcast on network TV with the supposed best announcing team in the business. Then consider the opportunity cost, a wins-above-replacement metric, to understand how these broadcasts are gaining the marginal viewer. Judging from the ratings of meaningless Bowl games. you throw anything on ESPN around that time and it will rate >750K viewers. So, to play the hypothetical, what would have the NBA’s most watched game rated had it been broadcast exclusively on ABC as they had in the past? 4.5m? 4.25M? Same goes for the IST knockout games which benefited from the same tactic.
I spent Christmas with a group of normie sports fans. At one point the topic of athletes flopping/diving/etc came up, and someone immediately said "Ugh, the NBA guys are THE WORST with that." The whole room agreed, spent a few minutes shitting on the NBA for that, and then proceeded to watch football for 10 hours. And even though I'm a bigger NBA fan than all of them, I couldn't argue their point, because they're right.
It boggles my mind that Silver doesn't realize this foul-baiting nonsense hurts the league.
NBA is down because both hardcore and casual fans have realized that the regular season doesn’t really matter. I would consider myself a huge fan but I just can’t get up for any real regular season game unless there is some drama behind it. I will watch 90% of the playoffs though as it feels as if teams and players are giving max effort.
The NBA's ratings decline is the same as everything else's. It has almost nothing to do with "wokeness," style of play, load management, etc. This is an issue of technology and viewing habits - the NBA's challenges are the same as cable, broadcast, streamers, MLB, movie theaters, etc. The NFL is the anomaly and it's a discredit to the discussion to act like they're the proverbial rabbit setting the pace for everyone else.
The NBA ratings are down conversations are basically 2 sets of groups fighting:
1. People who dislike a particular thing about the league, or direction the NBA went in, so they will argue that lower ratings are due to all things they personally hate about the league.
2. Cheerleaders/Fans of the league arguing that some legitimate points Group 1 is bringing up aren't real concerns for the league to worry about.
And everyone else is caught in the middle of the bad faith arguments.
Ratings are down, but the down ratings will have minimal impact on the league financially. The league has been consistent, but never had huge ratings compared to the rest of tv. Highest rated regular season was 1997-98, a 5.5 rating, which tie the league with the 115th most watched scripted shows on TV -- (a FOX show called Millennium and an NBC show called Sleepwalkers shared the rating) -- for comparison Monday Night Football was #4, and I couldn't a number for the MLB. And the Finals averaged 18.7, barely beating the most watched regular scripted show. ER, 17.7
And last year the league averaged a 1.6 on ABC in the regular season, which would be the 5th most watched show -- Sunday, Thursday, and Monday Night Football, and Yellowstone on Paramount Network. And their Finals averaged 11.64M viewers that season, which would again barely beat the most watched scripted tv show.
The whole conversation is frustrating because everyone is shouting extremes and ignoring any context.
The NBA's ratings are down, but even down they're in a better place now than they were previously because everything else on TV, minus the NFL, fell of a cliff.
It was foolish when people said in 2016 the NBA would topple the NFL because it's climbing ratings, it's foolish to say the league's financial future is questionable because of the falling ratings now.
The NBA getting one-tenth of the NFL isn't good, no one is celebrating that. But it's not the beginning of the end either. That's what's being lost as both sides try to spin the conversation
Maybe but the NBA was able to compete on the cultural conversation (Jordan, Kobe, Lebron, Steph as stars) and they’re quickly losing that too
I think at aggregate (across all games) you could argue that the NBA was watched more on national broadcasts than the NFL even if one game didn’t rank as high. Now you can’t argue that either
There are less entertainers (music/TV/movies) that hold the same cultural cache today that they did 10-15 years ago too. Football (NFL and CFB) is uniquely qualified to weather these technological shifts that change the way we consume entertainment.
This is a great post and set of points. It essentially removes the "people on Twitter said this stupid thing" part of the argument and boils it down to the basics. The NBA has a certain level of popularity. It's not as popular as football or whatever the most popular cultural thing is at the moment. Ok. True.
I like the NBA but I'm watching football over the regular season too. Or I'll read a book or something. That's how it's always been and always will be. Aside from people saying dumb stuff on Twitter I'm not sure why this is a hot topic
Meanwhile the premier league is getting 2 million for big games and growing. (and at terrible game times)
Why do I bring it up? They are in the scarcity business (just 38 games) they market clubs vs players. (Like the NFL) and have the youth demo that the NBA like to tour.
I don't think the times are actually terrible, and are in fact the reason it's popular. Weekend mornings were a hole in the sports calendar. Obviously you can't have sports in your timezone at that time because nobody would go, but you can definitely watch something that's taking place in the evening somewhere else.
I agree. It does have a natural space carved out for itself. That used to be my Sports Reporters, Fran Healy or Tim McCarver Show time. We had those weird syndicated local sports/talk shows at that time.
Didn’t know it was getting that kind of ratings in the states, two things it has in its favour:
1. The biggest game of the week is normally done just after the NFL starts on Sunday (used to start at 4pm UK time but they moved it to 4.30pm) so you’ve got a captive sports audience there at home/in bars (Liverpool v Man United is the biggest game in the calendar and now the police don’t force that to be a 12.30pm start it’s at a good time for the US audience the two times it was played in 2023 it was 4.30pm local time on a Sunday, Arsenal v Man City was that time slot a few months ago, Liverpool vs Arsenal was 5.30pm (12.30pm eastern) on the Saturday just gone in a top of the table clash, finished 2 hours before the NFL), when the time difference was 4 hours they shifted the Manchester derby 1 hour earlier as well (don’t think it was confirmed for the US audience but wouldn’t be shocked) so that helps there.
2. Following from the earlier point, there isn’t really competition from the major US sports during most of the games, granted due to timezone differences but last month someone in New York or Boston could watch Man City v Liverpool in bed at 7.30am before watching college football later that day, so just like I tend to get up around 4am before work to go to the gym and the NFL is quite conveniently in the 4th quarter during the season so I can catch the end of that game 3 times a week before starting my day, people on the east coast can do the same before their weekend starts.
EPL also has a good mix of team/player loyalty and leans in on that well - so you’ll get stateside Man City and Liverpool fans getting up early to watch their teams but you’ve also got neutrals who want to see Haaland and Salah in a big game who’ll watch, and they do a very good job of not letting the player rivalries dominate it too much like the Messi v Ronaldo narrative dominated the Barca/Real rivalry for a decade and that has suffered a lot in relevance since those two both left
Also one other thing, writing this as Brighton have just gone 4-0 up against spurs, one of the big sells of the NFL in particular is that anyone can beat anyone and to large extent this is true in the EPL without salary caps, in the aforementioned example Brightons wage bill is from memory around 30% of Tottenham’s and they finished above them last season, NBA is largely quite predictable, especially compared to the NFL, and that’s before you take into account the number of games
Really great reply and something that it has that American sports don't have and I don't know why we don't, is the concept of the supporter culture and club. There is a built in community aspect to being a supporter of the club vs a fan of NFL team.
I mean? I suppose their are NFL ex-pat bars in different Cities - (i live in San Diego, and their are different bars for different NFL teams) But I don't get the sense that their is community being built?
Whereas, even the tiny community of Manchester City supporters in San Diego, has a bar, and a place, and we have dues, and we take a group photo every game to show we are loyal to the shirt.... I can't imagine that happening for an NBA team? There is no Knicks bar where that matters? There is no way to manufacture the level of caring needed for those sports to flourish?
This is an interesting concept to me that I think might be a path forward for the USA based leagues? Can they create a club and community around the teams? Such that they can BIND people together for their clubs. Like? Why doesn't basketball in the USA have Ultras? Why isn't there a dog pound for Oklahoma? Why is that something called "college atmosphere" Why aren't their college atmospheres in the professional game? How do you tap into that?
The one that I think does have a bit of that in the UK is the NFL, went to the vikings-saints game at spurs last seasons and one of my mates is a big vikings fan (have no idea why, no family ties to the area and it’s not like they’ve been the patriots in his life, but he’s a big everton fan so probably enjoys the suffering) - quite a few of the uk fan club met up afterwards, there was vikings pubs that weekend and all
Does help that the bulk of the games are at good times for us (the channel that has the Sunday EPL games has the NFL so you can watch the game they choose or redzone like me), plus they’ve made a conscious push in the UK the last 15 years now and extending it to Germany
Only other thing I can kind of think of why it’s not really a thing stateside, teams move cities far more often? Teams in Europe when they move stadium typically move a couple of miles away (Man City was 3/4 miles away, Everton set to move a few miles away in a few years, Arsenal and West Ham moved a couple of miles down the road) and it’s generally not that controversial (West Ham was a bit but that was in part because they weren’t that good initially but not as big an issue as they’ve have a good few years) - only ones that have moved significantly which was Wimbledon/mk dons and red bull moving a team to Leipzig (and both still get some blowback, the latter I think was a 5th tier side at the time) in my lifetime, whereas bang off the top of my head the raiders have moved from LA to Oakland to Vegas, the Rams have gone from LA to St Louis back to LA, Oilers moved to Tennessee, Sonics, Hornets and Grizzlies have moved (Kings nearly did), Browns moved to Baltimore so there is always that, whereas it’s highly unlikely a top tier European team would up sticks and move to another part of the country
One more thought: the NBA would really benefit from 2 things the rest of the season:
1) the TWolves continuing to be good and having a long playoff rub. Anthony Edwards is the most charismatic young player in the NBA right now, and he doesn't (yet) have the issues Ja has. He can lift Minnesota the way Larry Johnson/Zo briefly lifted the Hornets to the height of coolness. Remember that period? The Hornets had the best jerseys and led the NBA in attendance, and were straight up cool. Trying to make the current Knicks or Heat or Suns cool is like trying to make "fetch" happen. How many years will it take before everyone realizes this?
2) The Bulls have to get good again. Holy fuck does the NBA miss the Chicago TV market. All those people freezing at home on Christmas day would be dying to watch the Bulls in a meaningful game.
Interesting point on the Bulls, as they were “the” team when the NBA got big after getting out of the tape delay finals era (and also when the league became relevant worldwide in the 90s), used to work in the sportswear industry and Bulls gear sold really well even though Jordan played for them and no finals appearances and generally haven’t been relevant from a basketball perspective bar a few of the Derrick Rose years - only NBA brand I’d definitely say is more relevant than the Bulls worldwide is the Lakers (maybe the heat/warriors with younger people or the Celtics) and I do think if they got to the level the Celtics have been the last few years (never mind the likes of golden state/denver/miami with titles/multiple titles finals appearances) that would boost the league
That's never proven to be true - look at the NFL. The NBA Finals ratings when Denver/Toronto/Bucks made the Finals were good. You just need one team to be a major market. Minny has a good culture now, the last thing you need is Ant in Chicago in that shitshow. You need him with Conley and Rudi in a city where a young guy can get in less trouble. We'll see in 5 years what he wants to do, but right now he's in the perfect setup.
I was looking at the NBA Christmas games between 1988 and 2000, what I would say is the "golden age" of NBA Christmas games. It was always a doubleheader in that era, until 2002-3. So the scarcity thing you always harp on? Check. And the matchups were always VERY specific. Set up based on last year's playoffs, and historical rivalries, and compelling storylines. It wasn't about big city franchises unless it made sense. It was Sacramento, and Indiana, and Utah, and Portland, if those were the big name teams in the moment. And it worked! Those games mattered so much, they sadly led to the oversaturation we see now. I'm a huge NBA fan and have strong nostalgia to that golden age, and even I thought the games this year were not super compelling. And there were too many! I honestly think the NBA dropped the ball here big time too. If they had kept it to an afternoon doubleheader with the right pairings, this could have been a huge success. Boston LA was a trash game and still did good ratings! The opportunity was there: lead with Lakers-Golden State, roll into Boston-Denver. That's your Christmas. Would have been huge ratings and everyone would be happy today, even with the NFL getting 3 excellent close games. Trying to force feed the starless Knicks and the boring Heat and Sixers and Suns and Mavs into it was torture on the viewers, even though Luka at least put on a show. The NBA is in that zone right now where the casuals and the general public have no idea who the stars are aside from Lebron and Curry. The young new guys just haven't popped yet, and maybe they never will. I don't think my mom and her friends will ever know who Jokic and Butler and Embiid and Giannis and Tatum are, they just don't transcend the NBA like that. At least not yet. If the NBA accepted defeat on the 5-header and kept it to 3 games, or even 2, I think they can back some public interest. And use Curry and Lebron to draw eyeballs to meet the next wave. And I'm NOT talking about Wembanyama and SGA. The next wave is Ant and Chet and Flagg. Figure out how to promote them, because that's your future. And next year, when obvious Christmas games are staring you in the face, don't run away from them! Just simply doing 2023 ECF and WCF rematches would have been great TV, and I bet Jimmy would have played against Boston. This overthinking is ruining everything.
“ I don't think my mom and her friends will ever know who Jokic and Butler and Embiid and Giannis and Tatum are”
Only two of them is American born, and butler is on the back few years of his ‘star’ status, probably part of the problem for the NBA whereas near enough everyone in the NFL bar kickers and punters are American - great for international reasons that but for the core market not so much
Exactly. That's why I think it's Ant/Chet/Cooper no matter how much better Wemby and Luka may be. For some crazy reason America really took to Dirk - eventually - but not immediately - and he was an exception. It could take another 10 years before Luka and Giannis and Joker have the same connection with casuals. And let's face it, you're not getting monster ratings without casuals.
2011 finals is probably what it took, irony is that it was an all American super team (which tbf grated a lot of people) which led to a German guy getting popular
I think most of these numbers are BS. I don’t need a focus group or polling data to tell me that more people watched the Dolphins beat the Bears on Monday night than any group ever watched a regular season game. I also know that more people watched 2016 7 game Cavs/Warriors than any other game post Jordan. The NFL - right now - is just the more watchable product - and that is with the worst QB health in memory. It just looks better on TV. Plus, the NBA has amazing players - up and down rosters - but the ball movement and diversity of play has never been worse. It is 3s, layups, and “let’s head to the monitor!” They could do so much better with all these amazing players.
I think the NBA should quit trying to win the last war and just move their season to Jan through July. They would just need to schedule the playoffs away from the NFL draft.
I’d personally cut the number of timeouts to 3 a half, can’t use a timeout within 2 minutes of the previous one and they can’t be used in the last 2 minutes of a quarter, the idea that some of the best athletes in the world can’t work out how to win a tight game at the end and need micromanaging over it is absurd to me
Baseball has done some stuff recently haven’t they regarding pace, haven’t been to a baseball game for years but the one plus side of it taking ages was that I could get a few beers in between the game and feel like I don’t miss much
Ok so is the nfl gonna put 3 games on a Wednesday next Christmas? Like sure they owned it this year and last, and they always were going to, this isn’t shocking, but if they really are spitefully trying to do this to mess with the nba then we should assume they will play 3 Wednesday games, and then 3 Thursday games, and then 3 Friday games the year after
Clearly NFL is the most dominant sport in the US. Though I’m guessing these stats are based on US audiences only? Assuming that to be the case, I’d be interested to know what these numbers look like if you take into account international audiences. The reality is that basketball is popular all over the world, whereas American football isn’t. American football is a niche sport outside of the US and Canada. Yes, US audiences might not be tuning into NBA games the same way they do NFL, but I’d be interested to know what these figures look like if international audiences are factored in
NBA used to have a game in London and moved it to Paris as it didn’t sell well, NFL had its first at Wembley in 2007 and I think had 4 this season and last at spurs and Wembley, last I remember in the uk it was about 70-100k for the early Sunday games (one massive advantage is the games are largely at a decent time for European audiences), plus Super Bowl parties are legitimately a thing in the uk (and have been for a long time)
Where the NBA does win is the player recognition - in part because their faces aren’t covered up but also because the stars probably last longer - most famous nfl player outside the states right now is probably travis kelce and that’s not because of his playing achievements but he isn’t as famous as a lebron or Steph
There are 8-9 teams jumbled teams jumbled up in the middle of the Western Conference. All are essentially using the same data-driven approach; all need to make a home run trade to become contenders. I have no idea who is going to win on any given night.
You'd think parity would be good for the NBA, as it keeps local markets engaged, but maybe its more effective to have clear tiers and more predictable storytelling and marketing.
You’re not even mentioning how these numbers are being juiced by aggregating simulcasts. It’s quite notable with the NBA on Christmas Day where 1.7 of the 5 million people were watching on ESPN. It’s a little conspicuous that the ESPN altcast was getting 50% of the viewers the ‘main’ broadcast on network TV with the supposed best announcing team in the business. Then consider the opportunity cost, a wins-above-replacement metric, to understand how these broadcasts are gaining the marginal viewer. Judging from the ratings of meaningless Bowl games. you throw anything on ESPN around that time and it will rate >750K viewers. So, to play the hypothetical, what would have the NBA’s most watched game rated had it been broadcast exclusively on ABC as they had in the past? 4.5m? 4.25M? Same goes for the IST knockout games which benefited from the same tactic.
I spent Christmas with a group of normie sports fans. At one point the topic of athletes flopping/diving/etc came up, and someone immediately said "Ugh, the NBA guys are THE WORST with that." The whole room agreed, spent a few minutes shitting on the NBA for that, and then proceeded to watch football for 10 hours. And even though I'm a bigger NBA fan than all of them, I couldn't argue their point, because they're right.
It boggles my mind that Silver doesn't realize this foul-baiting nonsense hurts the league.
NBA is down because both hardcore and casual fans have realized that the regular season doesn’t really matter. I would consider myself a huge fan but I just can’t get up for any real regular season game unless there is some drama behind it. I will watch 90% of the playoffs though as it feels as if teams and players are giving max effort.
The NBA's ratings decline is the same as everything else's. It has almost nothing to do with "wokeness," style of play, load management, etc. This is an issue of technology and viewing habits - the NBA's challenges are the same as cable, broadcast, streamers, MLB, movie theaters, etc. The NFL is the anomaly and it's a discredit to the discussion to act like they're the proverbial rabbit setting the pace for everyone else.
The NBA ratings are down conversations are basically 2 sets of groups fighting:
1. People who dislike a particular thing about the league, or direction the NBA went in, so they will argue that lower ratings are due to all things they personally hate about the league.
2. Cheerleaders/Fans of the league arguing that some legitimate points Group 1 is bringing up aren't real concerns for the league to worry about.
And everyone else is caught in the middle of the bad faith arguments.
Ratings are down, but the down ratings will have minimal impact on the league financially. The league has been consistent, but never had huge ratings compared to the rest of tv. Highest rated regular season was 1997-98, a 5.5 rating, which tie the league with the 115th most watched scripted shows on TV -- (a FOX show called Millennium and an NBC show called Sleepwalkers shared the rating) -- for comparison Monday Night Football was #4, and I couldn't a number for the MLB. And the Finals averaged 18.7, barely beating the most watched regular scripted show. ER, 17.7
And last year the league averaged a 1.6 on ABC in the regular season, which would be the 5th most watched show -- Sunday, Thursday, and Monday Night Football, and Yellowstone on Paramount Network. And their Finals averaged 11.64M viewers that season, which would again barely beat the most watched scripted tv show.
The whole conversation is frustrating because everyone is shouting extremes and ignoring any context.
The NBA's ratings are down, but even down they're in a better place now than they were previously because everything else on TV, minus the NFL, fell of a cliff.
It was foolish when people said in 2016 the NBA would topple the NFL because it's climbing ratings, it's foolish to say the league's financial future is questionable because of the falling ratings now.
The NBA getting one-tenth of the NFL isn't good, no one is celebrating that. But it's not the beginning of the end either. That's what's being lost as both sides try to spin the conversation
Maybe but the NBA was able to compete on the cultural conversation (Jordan, Kobe, Lebron, Steph as stars) and they’re quickly losing that too
I think at aggregate (across all games) you could argue that the NBA was watched more on national broadcasts than the NFL even if one game didn’t rank as high. Now you can’t argue that either
There are less entertainers (music/TV/movies) that hold the same cultural cache today that they did 10-15 years ago too. Football (NFL and CFB) is uniquely qualified to weather these technological shifts that change the way we consume entertainment.
This is a great post and set of points. It essentially removes the "people on Twitter said this stupid thing" part of the argument and boils it down to the basics. The NBA has a certain level of popularity. It's not as popular as football or whatever the most popular cultural thing is at the moment. Ok. True.
I like the NBA but I'm watching football over the regular season too. Or I'll read a book or something. That's how it's always been and always will be. Aside from people saying dumb stuff on Twitter I'm not sure why this is a hot topic
Meanwhile the premier league is getting 2 million for big games and growing. (and at terrible game times)
Why do I bring it up? They are in the scarcity business (just 38 games) they market clubs vs players. (Like the NFL) and have the youth demo that the NBA like to tour.
Be worried NBA. Be worried .
> and at terrible game times
I don't think the times are actually terrible, and are in fact the reason it's popular. Weekend mornings were a hole in the sports calendar. Obviously you can't have sports in your timezone at that time because nobody would go, but you can definitely watch something that's taking place in the evening somewhere else.
I agree. It does have a natural space carved out for itself. That used to be my Sports Reporters, Fran Healy or Tim McCarver Show time. We had those weird syndicated local sports/talk shows at that time.
Didn’t know it was getting that kind of ratings in the states, two things it has in its favour:
1. The biggest game of the week is normally done just after the NFL starts on Sunday (used to start at 4pm UK time but they moved it to 4.30pm) so you’ve got a captive sports audience there at home/in bars (Liverpool v Man United is the biggest game in the calendar and now the police don’t force that to be a 12.30pm start it’s at a good time for the US audience the two times it was played in 2023 it was 4.30pm local time on a Sunday, Arsenal v Man City was that time slot a few months ago, Liverpool vs Arsenal was 5.30pm (12.30pm eastern) on the Saturday just gone in a top of the table clash, finished 2 hours before the NFL), when the time difference was 4 hours they shifted the Manchester derby 1 hour earlier as well (don’t think it was confirmed for the US audience but wouldn’t be shocked) so that helps there.
2. Following from the earlier point, there isn’t really competition from the major US sports during most of the games, granted due to timezone differences but last month someone in New York or Boston could watch Man City v Liverpool in bed at 7.30am before watching college football later that day, so just like I tend to get up around 4am before work to go to the gym and the NFL is quite conveniently in the 4th quarter during the season so I can catch the end of that game 3 times a week before starting my day, people on the east coast can do the same before their weekend starts.
EPL also has a good mix of team/player loyalty and leans in on that well - so you’ll get stateside Man City and Liverpool fans getting up early to watch their teams but you’ve also got neutrals who want to see Haaland and Salah in a big game who’ll watch, and they do a very good job of not letting the player rivalries dominate it too much like the Messi v Ronaldo narrative dominated the Barca/Real rivalry for a decade and that has suffered a lot in relevance since those two both left
Also one other thing, writing this as Brighton have just gone 4-0 up against spurs, one of the big sells of the NFL in particular is that anyone can beat anyone and to large extent this is true in the EPL without salary caps, in the aforementioned example Brightons wage bill is from memory around 30% of Tottenham’s and they finished above them last season, NBA is largely quite predictable, especially compared to the NFL, and that’s before you take into account the number of games
Really great reply and something that it has that American sports don't have and I don't know why we don't, is the concept of the supporter culture and club. There is a built in community aspect to being a supporter of the club vs a fan of NFL team.
I mean? I suppose their are NFL ex-pat bars in different Cities - (i live in San Diego, and their are different bars for different NFL teams) But I don't get the sense that their is community being built?
Whereas, even the tiny community of Manchester City supporters in San Diego, has a bar, and a place, and we have dues, and we take a group photo every game to show we are loyal to the shirt.... I can't imagine that happening for an NBA team? There is no Knicks bar where that matters? There is no way to manufacture the level of caring needed for those sports to flourish?
This is an interesting concept to me that I think might be a path forward for the USA based leagues? Can they create a club and community around the teams? Such that they can BIND people together for their clubs. Like? Why doesn't basketball in the USA have Ultras? Why isn't there a dog pound for Oklahoma? Why is that something called "college atmosphere" Why aren't their college atmospheres in the professional game? How do you tap into that?
The one that I think does have a bit of that in the UK is the NFL, went to the vikings-saints game at spurs last seasons and one of my mates is a big vikings fan (have no idea why, no family ties to the area and it’s not like they’ve been the patriots in his life, but he’s a big everton fan so probably enjoys the suffering) - quite a few of the uk fan club met up afterwards, there was vikings pubs that weekend and all
Does help that the bulk of the games are at good times for us (the channel that has the Sunday EPL games has the NFL so you can watch the game they choose or redzone like me), plus they’ve made a conscious push in the UK the last 15 years now and extending it to Germany
Only other thing I can kind of think of why it’s not really a thing stateside, teams move cities far more often? Teams in Europe when they move stadium typically move a couple of miles away (Man City was 3/4 miles away, Everton set to move a few miles away in a few years, Arsenal and West Ham moved a couple of miles down the road) and it’s generally not that controversial (West Ham was a bit but that was in part because they weren’t that good initially but not as big an issue as they’ve have a good few years) - only ones that have moved significantly which was Wimbledon/mk dons and red bull moving a team to Leipzig (and both still get some blowback, the latter I think was a 5th tier side at the time) in my lifetime, whereas bang off the top of my head the raiders have moved from LA to Oakland to Vegas, the Rams have gone from LA to St Louis back to LA, Oilers moved to Tennessee, Sonics, Hornets and Grizzlies have moved (Kings nearly did), Browns moved to Baltimore so there is always that, whereas it’s highly unlikely a top tier European team would up sticks and move to another part of the country
Thats a size and density of the country thing.
One more thought: the NBA would really benefit from 2 things the rest of the season:
1) the TWolves continuing to be good and having a long playoff rub. Anthony Edwards is the most charismatic young player in the NBA right now, and he doesn't (yet) have the issues Ja has. He can lift Minnesota the way Larry Johnson/Zo briefly lifted the Hornets to the height of coolness. Remember that period? The Hornets had the best jerseys and led the NBA in attendance, and were straight up cool. Trying to make the current Knicks or Heat or Suns cool is like trying to make "fetch" happen. How many years will it take before everyone realizes this?
2) The Bulls have to get good again. Holy fuck does the NBA miss the Chicago TV market. All those people freezing at home on Christmas day would be dying to watch the Bulls in a meaningful game.
Interesting point on the Bulls, as they were “the” team when the NBA got big after getting out of the tape delay finals era (and also when the league became relevant worldwide in the 90s), used to work in the sportswear industry and Bulls gear sold really well even though Jordan played for them and no finals appearances and generally haven’t been relevant from a basketball perspective bar a few of the Derrick Rose years - only NBA brand I’d definitely say is more relevant than the Bulls worldwide is the Lakers (maybe the heat/warriors with younger people or the Celtics) and I do think if they got to the level the Celtics have been the last few years (never mind the likes of golden state/denver/miami with titles/multiple titles finals appearances) that would boost the league
No he should move. Having big players in small markets is bad. Trade him to the Bulls, yesterday.
That's never proven to be true - look at the NFL. The NBA Finals ratings when Denver/Toronto/Bucks made the Finals were good. You just need one team to be a major market. Minny has a good culture now, the last thing you need is Ant in Chicago in that shitshow. You need him with Conley and Rudi in a city where a young guy can get in less trouble. We'll see in 5 years what he wants to do, but right now he's in the perfect setup.
“I’m not sure how the NFL can find a way to make next year’s Wednesday Christmas work”
Have the teams playing on Thursday/Saturday play on Christmas Day so it would be a normal rest period of 4/6 days?
I was looking at the NBA Christmas games between 1988 and 2000, what I would say is the "golden age" of NBA Christmas games. It was always a doubleheader in that era, until 2002-3. So the scarcity thing you always harp on? Check. And the matchups were always VERY specific. Set up based on last year's playoffs, and historical rivalries, and compelling storylines. It wasn't about big city franchises unless it made sense. It was Sacramento, and Indiana, and Utah, and Portland, if those were the big name teams in the moment. And it worked! Those games mattered so much, they sadly led to the oversaturation we see now. I'm a huge NBA fan and have strong nostalgia to that golden age, and even I thought the games this year were not super compelling. And there were too many! I honestly think the NBA dropped the ball here big time too. If they had kept it to an afternoon doubleheader with the right pairings, this could have been a huge success. Boston LA was a trash game and still did good ratings! The opportunity was there: lead with Lakers-Golden State, roll into Boston-Denver. That's your Christmas. Would have been huge ratings and everyone would be happy today, even with the NFL getting 3 excellent close games. Trying to force feed the starless Knicks and the boring Heat and Sixers and Suns and Mavs into it was torture on the viewers, even though Luka at least put on a show. The NBA is in that zone right now where the casuals and the general public have no idea who the stars are aside from Lebron and Curry. The young new guys just haven't popped yet, and maybe they never will. I don't think my mom and her friends will ever know who Jokic and Butler and Embiid and Giannis and Tatum are, they just don't transcend the NBA like that. At least not yet. If the NBA accepted defeat on the 5-header and kept it to 3 games, or even 2, I think they can back some public interest. And use Curry and Lebron to draw eyeballs to meet the next wave. And I'm NOT talking about Wembanyama and SGA. The next wave is Ant and Chet and Flagg. Figure out how to promote them, because that's your future. And next year, when obvious Christmas games are staring you in the face, don't run away from them! Just simply doing 2023 ECF and WCF rematches would have been great TV, and I bet Jimmy would have played against Boston. This overthinking is ruining everything.
“ I don't think my mom and her friends will ever know who Jokic and Butler and Embiid and Giannis and Tatum are”
Only two of them is American born, and butler is on the back few years of his ‘star’ status, probably part of the problem for the NBA whereas near enough everyone in the NFL bar kickers and punters are American - great for international reasons that but for the core market not so much
Exactly. That's why I think it's Ant/Chet/Cooper no matter how much better Wemby and Luka may be. For some crazy reason America really took to Dirk - eventually - but not immediately - and he was an exception. It could take another 10 years before Luka and Giannis and Joker have the same connection with casuals. And let's face it, you're not getting monster ratings without casuals.
2011 finals is probably what it took, irony is that it was an all American super team (which tbf grated a lot of people) which led to a German guy getting popular
I think most of these numbers are BS. I don’t need a focus group or polling data to tell me that more people watched the Dolphins beat the Bears on Monday night than any group ever watched a regular season game. I also know that more people watched 2016 7 game Cavs/Warriors than any other game post Jordan. The NFL - right now - is just the more watchable product - and that is with the worst QB health in memory. It just looks better on TV. Plus, the NBA has amazing players - up and down rosters - but the ball movement and diversity of play has never been worse. It is 3s, layups, and “let’s head to the monitor!” They could do so much better with all these amazing players.
I think the NBA should quit trying to win the last war and just move their season to Jan through July. They would just need to schedule the playoffs away from the NFL draft.
Thank you ES for another solid read.
I am big against schedule reform in the NBA and instead think there needs to be massive pace of play reform. But that is just me.
Almost no reviews, almost no foul shots. No timeouts at all. The fourth quarter cannot take an hour.
I’d personally cut the number of timeouts to 3 a half, can’t use a timeout within 2 minutes of the previous one and they can’t be used in the last 2 minutes of a quarter, the idea that some of the best athletes in the world can’t work out how to win a tight game at the end and need micromanaging over it is absurd to me
Baseball has done some stuff recently haven’t they regarding pace, haven’t been to a baseball game for years but the one plus side of it taking ages was that I could get a few beers in between the game and feel like I don’t miss much
Ok so is the nfl gonna put 3 games on a Wednesday next Christmas? Like sure they owned it this year and last, and they always were going to, this isn’t shocking, but if they really are spitefully trying to do this to mess with the nba then we should assume they will play 3 Wednesday games, and then 3 Thursday games, and then 3 Friday games the year after
Clearly NFL is the most dominant sport in the US. Though I’m guessing these stats are based on US audiences only? Assuming that to be the case, I’d be interested to know what these numbers look like if you take into account international audiences. The reality is that basketball is popular all over the world, whereas American football isn’t. American football is a niche sport outside of the US and Canada. Yes, US audiences might not be tuning into NBA games the same way they do NFL, but I’d be interested to know what these figures look like if international audiences are factored in
NBA used to have a game in London and moved it to Paris as it didn’t sell well, NFL had its first at Wembley in 2007 and I think had 4 this season and last at spurs and Wembley, last I remember in the uk it was about 70-100k for the early Sunday games (one massive advantage is the games are largely at a decent time for European audiences), plus Super Bowl parties are legitimately a thing in the uk (and have been for a long time)
Where the NBA does win is the player recognition - in part because their faces aren’t covered up but also because the stars probably last longer - most famous nfl player outside the states right now is probably travis kelce and that’s not because of his playing achievements but he isn’t as famous as a lebron or Steph
There are 8-9 teams jumbled teams jumbled up in the middle of the Western Conference. All are essentially using the same data-driven approach; all need to make a home run trade to become contenders. I have no idea who is going to win on any given night.
You'd think parity would be good for the NBA, as it keeps local markets engaged, but maybe its more effective to have clear tiers and more predictable storytelling and marketing.