President Trump attacked the NBA last week, saying the league is in “big trouble” and blaming its alleged poor grades on players kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality.
“It was awful for basketball. Look at the basketball ratings. People are angry about it, ”Trump said during an interview on Clay Travis’ radio show. “They have enough politics with guys like me. They don’t need more. There was a nastiness in the NBA and in the way it was done. The NBA is in trouble. Big issue.”
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However, taking a concrete assessment of NBA ratings right from the reboot, or finding a single reason for their decline, is far from straightforward.
According to Nielsen data, the NBA’s viewership (P2 +) has dropped by about 13% from last season before closing (before March 12). The first week of games since reboot is down 4% from the NBA’s pre-crown average, however, primetime games on ESPN and TNT over the same time period are up 6% in views over the first part of the game. season. .
In fact, according to industry sources, the number of NBA viewers after closing increased 8% from the previous year, compared to the Spring 2019 season-ending games. But it’s worth noting that the number is comparing the same games and windows as last season, which means it doesn’t take into consideration the afternoon or pre-primetime games the league has been forced to schedule, as there are no direct comparisons.
“There is no proper context to compare the current post-COVID NBA viewership to any regular season,” said Tom McGovern, president of Omnicom Group Optimum Sports’ sports media division. “You have a greater number of broadcast windows and start times which are an anomaly for this current season. The number of windows alone will dilute your average rating, you won’t get West Coast prime time.”
The sources also point out that the 8% bump isn’t as big as the spikes other sports have noticed since they started again. For example, the NHL has risen 57% since the end of last year’s regular season, and MLB matches so far this season have increased 18% from last year.
It is true that the NBA numbers might have been expected to skyrocket upon his return, given how hungry they have been for live sports fans for several months.
The first night of bubble games featured a delightful match between LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers and Kawhi Leonard’s Los Angeles Clippers. The game was a nail biting, but the numbers (3.4 million admissions) were the lowest for any Lakers-Clippers game so far this season.
From the start of the reboot, it became abundantly clear that NBA games weren’t necessarily going to reach the heights of an average regular season.
There are many possible explanations for this, beyond the president’s feeling that it has to do with the protests.
“Similar to the NFL when similar statements were made with Colin Kaepernick, we never saw any direct signs of audience decline directly related to the protest,” says McGovern. “There are many reasons why they had a decline, but it can’t really be said that it was because of the protests.”
One such explanation could simply be that people aren’t watching as much TV (at least not in the traditional sense of cable and broadcast) this summer. People Using Television (PUT) levels have experienced a much documented slump across the board over the past couple of months. So far this summer, PUT levels have dropped by around 18% from late March and April, when these games would air on a regular season.
“The biggest competition right now is summer. There’s a reason most sports aren’t played in July and August, it’s because PUTs are down and you’re competing with lifestyle, “says McGovern.” I’d say anyone looking at the average rating and say it is low or high would be irresponsible. There is no context, there are no comparables. “
The busy schedule the NBA has been forced into due to COVID could also be a factor. Many of the games are played in the early afternoon or late morning, depending on which coast you are on, which obviously wouldn’t normally be. Let’s take the first round of the playoffs starting next week as an example. Just yesterday, Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets tipped off at 10:30 PT, while later in the week, Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat will play their second game of their series at 10:00 PT on Thursday.
No disrespect for those four teams, but does anyone really expect those games to attract a similar number of spectators as in prime time?
Looking at what happened in the season before the reboot and the same results in Florida could also shed some light on why the NBA reboot wasn’t a rating crash.
The Golden State Warriors, a team no NBA fan needs to remember, have dominated the league in recent years and their captivating basketball brand hasn’t even made it to the bubble. Steph Curry and co. They’ve been a reliable rating banker for half a decade, but their meager 15-50 season certainly cost the league in terms of ratings, both before and after the lockdown.
Then there’s the fact that the Toronto Raptors’ top NBA crown contenders have so far failed to build steam in the bubble. The Lakers went 3-5 on the bubble, the Bucks 3-5 and the Clippers 4-3 (excluding yesterday’s playoff game).
Having no audience at games and low stakes for seed spots hasn’t necessarily made the NBA the kind of must-see TV it has sometimes been in recent years. Maybe when the end of the competition begins, and if LeBron and Kawhi face off again when the chips are down, those numbers will go up. Maybe someone should ask the President’s opinion on this?
Following that interview with Trump, Travis tweeted the numbers that compared the total viewers of Fox News shows, such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, with those of the NBA games they clashed against in the week of August 10.
“Head-to-head cable Monday night: Tucker Carlson spectators: 4.5 million. Lakers-Nuggets spectators: 1.5 million. Head-to-head Tuesday night: Sean Hannity: 4.6 million, Blazers-Mavs: 930k. , NBA, “Travis tweeted.
Dallas Mavericks owner and “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban, who has been involved in Twitter discussions with Travis and other conservatives on the subject, retorted by pointing out that the NBA season would have ended almost exactly three months ago.
“You realize that was the day Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris,” Cuban added in another tweet, referencing Travis’ confrontation between Hannity and the Blazers-Mavs game.
While several Fox News shows may have beaten the NBA in the coveted 18-49 demographic that same night, as Travis also pointed out, the league beat Fox News in the same demo on the nights the games aired first. evening on ESPN and TNT. In those days, the NBA was 145% bigger than Fox News in the youngest demo.
But obviously Fox News squeezed the NBA into older demographics, and so on, and that whole topic could go. The point here is not only that we are comparing apples and oranges, but also that it entirely depends on how you slice the fruit.
“Why on earth should I compare the two,” says McGovern. “There are some marketers who find the Fox News audience important, or any other news audience, but it’s not necessarily the same viewers, the same brands that work with the NBA.”
The championship numbers may continue to deflate a little or they may rebound. The NBA’s less-than-stellar restart numbers may be due in part to player protests, but it’s both highly unlikely and impossible to prove.
One person we know for sure won’t be watching is the president, who previously said “what I do is personally turn off the game” when he sees players on their knees.
However, Trump’s channel change will certainly not affect the typical NBA viewership, as LeBron James himself summed up well.
“I don’t think the basketball community is sad that they have lost their audience as they watch the game,” James said in an interview last week. “And that’s all I have to say.”
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