NBA Commissioner Adam Silver acknowledged a dip in TV ratings for the current season but emphasized that this does not reflect a lack of interest in basketball.
Which is seeing things through rose-colored glasses, to put it mildly.
Silver, in an interview with The Athletic, diminished the trend by stating, “Ratings are down a bit.”
“If you look at other data points, in terms of our business, for example, we’ve just come off the last two years of the highest attendance in the history of this league,” he sugarcoated.
“We’re at a point where our social media audience is at the highest of any league and continuing to grow exponentially. So, it’s not a lack of interest in this game.”
NBA Ratings Are On The Slide
There’s been a noted decline in the NBA’s ratings, with some sources reporting a 19% drop from the previous year through mid-December 2024, swelling to 25% when including NBA TV.
Silver says the ratings are a result of other options being available to consumers.
“We’re almost at the inflection point where people are watching more programming on streaming than they are in traditional television,” Silver said. “And it’s a reason why for our new television deals, which will enter into next year, every game is going to be available on a streaming service.”
“And as we move to streaming service, putting aside how the actual game is played on the floor, it’s going to allow us from a production standpoint to do all kinds of things that you can’t do through traditional television,” he added.
“All kinds of new functionality, all kinds of new options and screens that are available.”
RELATED: The NBA Dribbles Back Into China, First Games There Since 2019
They’ve Lost Regular Americans
Sports broadcaster Colin Cowherd blasted the league, noting that ratings have been significantly down – 48% in the last 12 years – and that the downward trend continues this season.
Cowherd pointed out that stars sitting to get some rest at games is a huge problem when a family buys tickets to a game only to never see those top players.
He said the league has managed to “detach from regular people in America” and, as a result, is paying “a price.”
Silver, though, contends that the ratings dip is part of adapting to how modern audiences consume content rather than a commentary on the quality or appeal of NBA basketball itself.
The NBA recently announced the league is set to make its grand return to China with a series of preseason games. Perhaps that is their solution to getting their ratings back up.
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