The NBA continues to buck the television ratings trend, with both national and local viewership showing impressive gains as the league headed into the All-Star break. Nationally, NBA games on ABC, ESPN, NBA TV and TNT are showing double-digit viewership increases. The combined 15 percent jump puts the league’s TV viewership at its best mark heading into All-Star weekend since the 2012-13 season. Locally, regional sports networks are seeing a 7 percent increase in ratings so far this season. SportsBusiness Journal analyzed ratings data for 27 U.S.-based teams across the NBA. Seventeen RSNs showed increases; 10 posted decreases. Information for Memphis, Utah and Toronto was not available. https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2018/02/19/Research-and-Ratings/NBA-ratings.aspx I wonder what the rockets local TV ratings are?
NBA Viewership Down Eight Percent From 17-18 With Early Games Down 12 Percent NBA regular season games have averaged approximately 1.87 million viewers across ESPN, ABC and TNT entering the 2019 All-Star break, which is down eight percent from last year (2.02M), but up three percent from 2016-17 (1.82M). Viewership has declined 12% for games starting before 9:30 PM ET (from 2.30M to 2.02M), and increased 4% for games starting after 9:30 (from 1.64M to 1.70M). The Lakers are the biggest draw in the NBA with 2.77 million viewers per game. The Warriors rank as the second-biggest draw this season, with their games averaging 2.58 million. At the same point last year, Golden State games were averaging 2.94 million. The Celtics (2.18M), Thunder (2.08M) and Sixers (2.03M) round out the top five.
NBA Ratings Down 23 Percent On TNT, 20 Percent On ESPN, 13 Percent On RSNs Both TNT and ESPN have shown double-digit drops so far to begin the 19-20 NBA season. TNT's coverage is down 23 percent while ESPN has dropped by 20 percent. The NBA's RSN numbers are down 13 percent. While the Orlando Magic (+125 percent) and Atlanta Hawks (+43 percent) have seen gains, the Washington Wizards are down 57 percent and are the NBA team with the biggest drop. The Golden State Warriors are down 51 percent as they are without Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson after losing Kevin Durant to free agency.
Hmm lets see. There are about 9 teams worth watching in the NBA, maybe another 2 more that are tolerable. So your lucky if two of these teams actually play one another. And lets just take a look at tonight's schedule. Theres actually 2 good games! (Which is rare) LAL / Den and Mia/Tor, neither of which have been picked to be nationally televised. Instead we are treated to the Pelicans and the Blazers, two god awful teams. You have the best offensive player ever at his peak, who is not promoted whatsoever, but instead **** on by every media outlet and even the league. CARMELO ANTHONY PLAYER OF THE WEEK ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME? Your officiating is abysmally inconsistent leaving players guessing what set of rules they are going to be playing under every night. Your commentators do nothing but **** on the game and the players. Not to mention you make it nearly impossible to watch the games. Oh I have comcast and I can "stream" anywhere. Wait what, I can only watch the game from inside my house? The ****, why? Oh lets not mention the completely arbitrary and pointless blackout rules. I mean this makes a lot of sense.. except it doesn't. I wonder why ratings are down?
Surprised to see the Hawks with that gain lol. Were there really that many GSW fans driving ratings? I thought that might be supplemented by LA fans this year. Maybe NY is getting tired of being bad. Officiating is also as bad as ever. I think it's a combination of things, including the fact that nobody seems to care about regular season any more. As rockets fans, how many times have you seen people say "doesn't matter in the winter, only matters in the summer." I know I've seen a lot of that when it comes to Harden. People only care about playoffs nowadays. It's like they forget the sport exists as entertainment, or that it's only entertaining to people during playoffs. Maybe the season is too long. Maybe teams should stop load managing. Idk man.
I don’t think there will be a return to high ratings when the playoffs start. That’s just blind optimism talking from League talking heads. People don’t just ignore a sport for a whole season then start following closely when the postseason starts. You build anticipation during the regular season, which is what draws viewers later on when the stakes go up. I would venture that there are far deeper structural issues with the NBA, such as lack of presence on non-cable networks, frequent player movement (which confuses casuals and erodes local ratings due to perceived mercenary attitudes amongst players), lack of defense and over reliance on 3 pointers, etc
Kevin Durant heading to the 72 win Warriors team made me watch the NBA a lot less, and I am a fan of the Rockets who had the best chance of taking them down. I'm sure many fans of other teams felt the same way too especially with Adam Silver emphasizing that super teams were good for the league.
The big drop really started after LeBron moved to the Lakers. He was a draw for the central and east cost time zones. Now he plays in West coast. Who is going to stay up until 12 to watch him. There is no one to fill his void for the east coast.
I think the incredible amount of 3 point shooting is one of the reasons why it's lost some of its ratings.
After Lebron moved (last year). It still dropped nationally this year. Highlights is available almost instantly after a game ends. Younger crowd are in their phones and the web more. Traditional tv is losing ground. People are cutting the cords more (ESPN/TNT). Cable expensive if you only watch a little.
of course they’re down on ESPN and TNT...the national TV schedule has been utter sh*t this season Why would I waste my time watching the likes of the Pelicans, Warriors, Blazers, etc? They had the nerve to put Celtics @ Hornets on national TV like anyone gave 2 fcks about that game. Kawhi load manages so much so u don’t even know if he’ll play in a game, and when he does, he decides to miss a game against Giannis on national TV in order to play the next night against irrelevant Portland. Really?