What’s (Actually) Wrong with the NBA?
Everyone has a theory for why basketball is broken. They're all faulty.
Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we break down the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Today, Jacob joins the discourse…
I’m guessing French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin wasn’t thinking about the National Basketball Association back in 1993, when he coined the term “polycrisis.” But it fits.
Polycrisis: a time of great disagreement, confusion, or suffering that is caused by many different problems happening at the same time so that they together have a very big effect.1
The NBA’s national TV ratings are down this year—if you haven’t heard—and everyone seems to have an opinion why. The topic has stretched from talk shows to player press conferences to Adam Silver’s latest meeting with the media. Here’s an incomplete list of factors cited for basketball’s declining share of television eyeballs (in no particular order).
The NBA is Broken Because….
Players are shooting too many three-pointers, which isn’t exciting enough.
There aren’t enough bitter rivalries.
Too many of the top players are foreign-born.
Star players change teams too often.
The next generation of stars isn’t as compelling as LeBron, Steph, and KD.
Team playing styles are too similar, due to analytics’ influence.
Teams don’t play defense well enough.
The regular season is too long.
Star players sit out of games.
Star players get hurt too often.
Players are too vocal about politics.
NBA players are no longer relatable.
The sport is too easy.
The regular season doesn’t matter.
A broken NCAA isn’t developing stars for fans to follow into the pros.
More games need to be on streaming platforms, where younger viewers are.
Games are too fragmented across channels and services, making it harder to find them.
The All-Star Game isn’t competitive enough.
It’s too expensive to attend NBA games, or even watch at home.
I can get by with just clips and highlights, rather than watching full games.
The media is too negative, including harping on declining ratings when the situation isn’t that bad.
Reporters don’t do a good enough job telling players’ and teams’ stories.
The media focuses too much on player drama rather than on-court results.
A bunch of teams are tanking to get a high draft pick.
Refereeing is inconsistent (and maybe rigged).
Replay slows games down just when they’re getting exciting, and often still misses things.
Each team has too many alternate uniforms.
The playoffs are too long, with too many teams.
Betting on the NBA is too complicated.
League leaders have said they’re studying at least a few of these issues, with tweaks and changes coming. But can they really fix everything that’s wrong with the NBA? They don’t have to.
If anything, the Rashomon-like variety of opinions on what’s wrong with the NBA (where, generally speaking, each person’s diagnosis usually just happens to align with the specific issues that bother them personally) proves that none of those actually represent the biggest issue at hand. I think I know what that is:
Choice.
For most of modern American sports history, “compelling to watch” was sufficient for a league’s success. The barriers-to-entry of putting on arena-sized events, paying famous athletes, and broadcasting games to the masses kept competition low, especially on a regional basis.
But now, with the expansion of streaming, TikTok, video games, YouTube, and a thousand other digital vices, “compelling” doesn’t cut it. I imagine 50 years ago, consumers were pretty satisfied with their favorite musical act or soap brand, despite the relatively limited number of options available. Today, those offerings need to be tailored to a very specific audience, if not to the level of the literal individual. And now the same goes for entertainment.
Basketball isn’t broken, at least not more than it ever has been. It just has more competition.
Citing social media data, the league says interest in the NBA has never been higher. I think that’s right. But interest only gets you so far today, when there is so much interesting available. “Must-watch” is the only way to grow a truly dedicated fanbase.
The league seems to recognize that. The NBA Cup has created at least one more night on the calendar for basketball fans to circle. The reconfiguration of All-Star hopes to maintain another. Silver is already talking about how the next media deal—including streamers Prime Video and Peacock—will let the league put on more modern shows designed to grab young fans’ attention. (Early Christmas returns may help quiet the noise as well).
The fixes won’t come easy. After years living in the mainstream, leagues are now finding out just how many of their fans consider games to be must-watch material. Much of the drop can be attributed to a declining number of households with cable TV packages, meaning viewers have to jump over additional hurdles to track teams. In some cases, local franchises remain reliable draws while it’s harder to get folks to tune in for faraway action. In other cases, historic matchups and starpower have proven enough to generate viewership spikes. And then there are the former fans who are now largely tuning out, citing one gripe or another when in reality, they’ve merely found a more personally suited alternative to fill their free time.
I’d put the chance of the NBA retaining its massive cultural foothold for several more generations well above the likelihood of a corner three going in. But I wouldn’t call it a slam dunk.
Eben’s ⚡️ Take: This essay is Jacob’s Christmas gift to me. I’ve ranted before about my myriad issues with the sport of basketball (not just specifically the NBA), so I won’t rehash them here. And I’d definitely rather be the NBA than a number of other sports that are feeling some of these same pressures. But I’ll offer a word of warning for them all. As everything in entertainment shifts to more gamified, bite-sized, bettable portions, served by the most Internet-famous of people, I do think sports leagues/teams/events run the risk of losing their way. The NBA Cup was a great idea, but if the 2031 version includes a rebounding contest between Jake Paul and Dennis Rodman, there’s no coming back from that.
BTW, I now plan to insult all my media friends by saying their content is merely “compelling.”
Programming Note: The Pick Six now comes in a separate post, in your inbox every Saturday AM.
Club Sportico is a community organized by Sportico, a digital media company launched in 2020 to cover the business side of sports. You can read breaking news, smart analysis, and in-depth features from Eben, Jacob and their colleagues at Sportico.com, and listen to the Sporticast podcast wherever you get your audio. Contact us at club@sportico.com.
via the Cambridge Dictionary.