Activism in professional sports doesn’t explain the ratings decline.

the rating is for TV viewing, no ?
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increasing # of people viewing sports via other means , such as mobile devises, podcast, etc. which are not accounted for in the TV rating

 

People don't want to watch empty stadiums... boring as hell. They are also sick of Californian teams winning every finals. Oh and the unnecessary politics do play some role. NBA specifically....

I am personally sick of our owner... annnnnnd that really makes it hard to even wear Rockets gear these days yet I do.

 

I don't watch nearly as much and it's due to Covid. For one, it puts things into perspective. 2 - it's created such a weird environment across all sports. In the NBA you have the bubble - weird. In college football you have teams like Baylor who have had to postpone or cancel like 4 games already. Too chaotic...

The good news is - declining ratings in sports don't matter! It doesn't affect us. The NBA and MLB are not going out of business.

Perspective.

 

it is annoying to get political creep into sports. its been happening for a while - ultimately that is how you end up with a basketball bbs that talks politics.

i believe sports has become more niche with so many competing options.
streaming , games , apps, sites... gone are the days of a few network sources.

it doesnt help that is has become increasingly difficult to watch games due to stupid rules like not being able to get rockets on certain carriers. i am a paying customer happy to pay ..oftentimes either blacked out or having to pull a pirate link.

ive had hulu sling fubo you name it and even then there are games you cant see. its broken system.

if cant get to stuff playing wack a mole its a quick way to get me to lose interest..

my kids arent going to mess with it and dont have the loyalty to nfl mlb nba and ties to it like we did ..it was everywhere but also forced.part of reason i watched rockets is because nothing else on and it was on janky ass channel 20. i guess will watch this...this olajuwon dude is pretty good!!

 

Young people don’t buy cable, on top of the pandemic being a big distraction.

 

Political creep has some pull against it, but it didn't override its use as a distraction years before.

Looks like Bread and Circuses don't work well when we're all isolated and fighting for survival or certainty.

The social connectiveness isn't as strong now that we can't share moments at the bar or around the water cooler.

Eternal foreign wars...sports GUD

Domestic war or crisis...sports WHY

 

combination of many factors over the past 40 years...

When cable TV first came around and ESPN was first created, the network couldn't afford contracts with pro sports, so they contracted with college sports and marketed the hell out of it. This led to an explosion of interest in college sports that took away market share form pro sports.

The uprising of fantasy sports had a negative impact on fans' focus and loyalty to teams and shifted focus on players.

Pro sports' slowness to migrate from network and cable TV to internet broadcast has had a negative impact on viewership.

Newer generations have a greater focus on technology than they do on athletic programs.

And then there's the incessant bull$hit that goes along with the pro sports. Players being prima donnas. Owners being knuckleheads. Team scandals. Player scandals. Teams moving to other cities. Players using the sports as platforms for their messages.

This all pushes people away from pro sports toward... well, just about anything else.

 

I have a couple theories for declining ratings

1. Lack of sports bars and night life. Millions of people go out on Friday/Saturday nights and chances are there will be sports like basketball on TV. These people aren't the biggest fans of the sport, but they'll get drunk and pay attention/have a good time watching with others. This causes them to become interested in the matchups, and so they are more likely to tune into a game on a Sunday night when they are at home. Without bars, they never get a chance to get sucked into the NBA so they don't even bother watching.

2. Stress. there is too much anxiety and stress going on right now. When you are stressed out, it's hard to enjoy certain things in life, and sports might be one where you don't get as much joy out of anymore

 

In the NBA, I have no interest in continual Lakers or Warriors coverage. Boring.

 

Interesting take from across the pond:

EPL Viewership Is Giving The NFL A Run For Its Money In The U.S.

https://the18.com/en/soccer-enterta...ts reported that the,the course of the season.

 

Just came in to echo this. Cord cutters like myself are just watching games on reddit type streams. I haven’t watched regular TV channels in years. It’s either Netflix, Prime and streams for live sports. I’m sure I am not the only one.

 

The mixture of politics and sports is a funny one. People like to claim that politics and sports have always intertwined, but just because two things may be political in nature does not mean that they lay upon the same bedrock either from a moral sense or as objective truth. Either way, even with more ambiguous social issues jumping into sports, I think that as a cause of decline they are tertiary at best.

I think the prime problem is that things just ****ing suck **** through a straw right now. Sports does not really raise morale as much as it reflects it, IMO. When we are all broke and dying, we're not really concerned with whether team X can put object Y through goal Z. Plus the wrecked format of the games/seasons is a real downer too. It all feels half-assed and borderline irresponsible, almost. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for what little altered sports we're getting, but I honestly don't care nearly as much as I did when life was better.

Secondarily, sports have adapted very poorly to the narrowing and shortening attention span of the American viewer. Football in particular is so full of ads and fluff, with only like 5% of the broadcast being actual gametime, it's ridiculous. I simply don't have the patience or time to sit through 3 hours of advertisements and idle chatter to watch 15 minutes of actual sports. Add in the fact that the social experience is gone, and most people wonder why bother?

 

Ratings for sports have been going down long before Covid, and long before political activism - and they drop across all types of sports ranging from baseball to basketball to NASCAR, all of which have different approaches to politics. These are just excuses for people trying to drive a narrative.

Ratings have been dropping for lots of reasons - they are cyclical with teams (people loved the Warriors), streaming & other ways of watching, more TV options in general (more cable channels, Netflix, etc), changing viewing habits for new generations (young people have shorter attention spans), etc.

 

I think activism is near the bottom of the decline and agree with a lot of the reasons posted here (problems with viewing, lack of crowds, etc..) Another factor I see is that there are so many other entertainment choices. A lot of people might be more interested in watching the latest Netflix show than watching a game between teams that aren't from their home city.

 

Used to watch all 82 Rockets games and even had season tix about 10 years ago. Now I barely watch 5 regular seasons and this year I missed a bunch of playoff games because I couldn't care less or didn't even know when we were playing.

For me it's the NBA and the horrible rigged refs plus the Rockets boring style. Who the **** wants to watch teams shoot 100 three pointers a game while playing no defense smh

 

i'm somewhat similar. Silver in 2018 REALLY took a lot of my love for basketball away. When it's some random team getting robbed (sac in early 2000s, dallas in 06, etc.) of a title it's one thing, but when it's MY team it just hit totally different. 2015-2018 i watched at least 70 games a season, every rockets playoff game, and tons of other playoff games. This season i didn't watch a minute of the nba after i saw scott foster got assigned game 2 vs the lakers, the was it for me this season.

 

With more ppl home watching politics it can be assumed that the effect will be greater. Americans are not marxists and don't supoort marxist groups. They don't want to be preached to. Dribble the ball and shut up is kinda rude but there is truth to it. If lebron took a stance you didn't like you wouldn't tune in either.

 

The bigger trend is internet and social media -- growing up there were many more non sporty kids than sporty kids, but the non sporty were forced to comply and watch sports and cheer to fit in. Now they just sit behind a phone and stay in their heads and never have to get into sports to make it through childhood or interact with others. It is absolutely a social media thing for those under 25. As far as adults, it's been mentioned before, but it's just not as fun. NBA is far out three's or uber athletes out jumping each other. You can't really emulate in a pick up. Football too many interruptions. MLB very niche. And yes adults don't want low IQ but athletic millionaires pretending like they can see things as leaders - they're just puppets for whoever handles them or lines their pockets. There's no sense of accountability or attention to detail either. You have to be smart to survive in real world, in sports world you don't.

 

Dude Roger freaking Goddell said “Black Lives Matter.” That’s not a controversial thing to say and nobody except for hacks like yourself see the words Black Lives Matter and immediate start yelling that the Commies are coming!! You sound insane.

The NBA didn’t see a rating drop because of that. People who were offended like you were offended long ago by tattoos and corn rows and baggy shorts... and your favorite player was Larry Bird.

The reasons for the decline are:

-Streaming abilities
-Fan experience per Covid (community event viewing)
-Supply of viewing options
-Sports bars, etc. limited openings
-Election year (prime time pulling in more political and news show viewers)
-Stress leading to inability to enjoy
-quality of product

The decline is mostly related though to the cutting off of cable. That has been leading to a drop in viewership ratings for years now pre Covid and then Covid just added other dynamics. Politics is very low and likely would be a factor regardless of BLM which nobody thinks is a Commie calling card other than your tin foil hat wearing self.