Exactly, lets get back to team ball and officials calling the game correctly. No more star treatment. I cancelled the NBA Pass when the NBA went woke. This downturn in viewership was inevitable.
Social media is at least partially responsible. On the surface, bringing more awareness to the sports every detail seems to fuel interest. In reality, it might create information fatigue. All the worthless noises floating around make people numb. Everybody can be a "journalist" now. And the amount of negativity toward players and coaches makes pretty much everyone unlikable.
MLB is on the decline as well. I don't think it has anything to do with "woke", nba style of play, or marketing style. If anything, the Spurs more team first style had some of the lowest rated finals runs of the 2000s. It's really just generally decline of linear TV viewership and the departure of one of, if not the most, recognizable sports figures in American history (ratings dropped off a cliff when MJ retired). People just don't want to plan their nights around a TV broadcast 100 nights a year (including playoffs). The NFL is an outlier because it requires minimal time commitment throughout the week if you just want to support your home team.
Well Shaq is partially right but the way he phrases it is a bit silly. I do agree it all feels the same, back in the 90s there were the faster paced west coast teams who started to shoot more threes and east coast in general more grind it down, slower etc.
MFs is getting older and it’s hard to dedicate 2.5 hours out of the day (double that if you’re going to the game) for that many games. Besides, gen z got other weird hobbies and they don’t have the attention span to sit and watch full games especially when there’s long highlights of all the good plays.
The NBA and ESPN has done a great job hiding Sarr. It took me about 10 solid minutes to find out without using Google.
Personally for me I stopped watching as much after game 7. Didn't really feel like supporting a rigged sport. They try so hard to prop up their stars and big markets. Even this year warriors shot like 30 more free throws than we did and we lost in OT. Any league that constantly sends Scott foster to games 7 has an agenda and really shouldn't get your support,
They made the right decision to bring games back to NBC in the 25-26 season. You need to have many free games again on TV that everyone all over the world can watch easily without cable, or needing league pass or pirate streams. Increase market share by letting everyone see your product. Also, a new generation of stars needs to develop after LeBron, Curry, Durant, etc. are gone. Also, develop more kids playing basketball from all neighborhoods. Park games, youth leagues, do NBA 2k sponsored youth leagues with player appearances, anything to encourage young talent to develop the love of the game. The highest ratings were with a charismatic Jordan and games with the NBA on NBC, with Costas, Ahmad Rashad, and the HOF broadcast crew names. Have that and the NBA on TNT guys have a home and you can get back there.
I think the average person just doesn't watch nearly as much sports as they used to. People didn't have smartphones, social media and streaming services 30 years ago. People are better able to pick and choose highly targeted media for themselves. The NFL is the only regularly scheduled programming anyone seems to have time for these days. Yep, basically what I said earlier in this thread. MJ retiring has had one of the the biggest impacts on ratings decline.
because everyone is streaming on the high sea until they fix blackout, this will continue to be the way.
This might be a good start, but I dont think we'll ever get back to the days where everyone on earth knows who you are talking about when it comes to sports or popular culture mainly because of streaming. Even if the games are free to watch, there's something else on somewhere and they are going to watch that. Back in the day, you were basically forced to know the stuff they feed you on TV because the internet wasn't as huge. Now, with so many other outlets to get your entrainment and news, more people are just ignorant to what other people think is popular. The culture has become silo'd I remember when pretty much everyone knew at least 2 players on every top 25 NCAA football and BBALL team. We knew who was swimming at the olympics, a Dude off the street could name a star on every NBA and NFL team. We knew a little about what was happening in Rap/Rnb/Country/Rock/Pop all at once. I don't think we are ever going to get back to that point with the way the internet and streaming has exploded. I feel like the only thing to really break through was Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.
