The NBA has a viewership problem and there are many hands in the pot that could be to blame.
Fans are dropping off the hardwood left and right as load management, poor quality of basketball and lack of North American stars have resulted in basketball’s ratings being down 25 percent year over year and over 50 percent overall since 2013, according to Sports Media Watch.
Basketball podcaster and media mogul Bill Simmons has seen the faces of basketball since the 2010s and believes LeBron James and Stephen Curry are both part of the problem and solution.
“There’s been so much, ‘What’s wrong with the NBA?’ stuff,” Simmons said on the Bill Simmons Podcast. “The Steph-LeBron thing was so good that it was actually the solution and the problem.”
Simmons explained that the NBA Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder did not play on Christmas Day, and neither did the Milwaukee Bucks and star Giannis Antetokounmpo.
He explained that stars aren’t being given the spotlight to take the reigns of the league.
“It’s coming at the expense of everybody else,” Simmons said. “[Christmas Day] it’s in that eight o’clock spot, it’s in the best spot, it’s after football is over, and that’s the signature game. And it’s basically two .500 teams and its guys that have been in the league since 2003 and 2009 respectively and yet OKC wasn’t on Christmas Day. Giannis wasn’t on Christmas Day. [Victor Wembanyama] was buried at the beginning of the day and you’re kind of doing this to yourself but at the same time I get it because Steph and LeBron was awesome.”
“You could go glass half full or glass half empty on it, but the fact that the Steph-LeBron game was so good and sucked up so much oxygen from the day is actually kind of part of the problem.”
The Lakers won a 115-113 thriller, with James leading the way and Austin Reaves hit a game-winning layup with one second left.
After the game, James declared Christmas Day “Our day” in response to the NFL attempting to take it over.
The question to ask is if basketball is able to take the risk of having a game on the prime-time schedule where a player like Joel Embiid is headlining Christmas Day, knowing that he has about a 50/50 chance he will or won’t play.
However, the point about Antetokounmpo is a good one.
“The Greek Freak” is just that––durable, hardworking, funny, and a fierce competitor who doesn’t make too many friends.
The NBA quickly boasted about their Christmas Day ratings boom as the Lakers-Warriors drew more viewers than any regular-season game in NBA history.
Three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic appears to care less about being a star in the United States, and Luka Doncic spends most of his time in Europe during the offseason.
James, who turns 40 on Dec. 30, is still playing at a high level but it’s hard to doubt that any other team or player can carry that kind of cache in the ratings.
Neither James’ Lakers nor Curry’s Warriors are true NBA title contenders at this point; barring an unforeseen trade, the NBA’s new CBA deal makes it seemingly impossible to complete at this point.
