From Front Office Sports <[email protected]>
Subject Searching for NBA Storylines
Date November 17, 2024 11:59 AM
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Sunday Edition

November 17, 2024

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Good morning. One week ago, FOS newsletter reader Andrew Tanker tweeted at us [[link removed]], “For those of us not in the TV industry that don’t need up to the minute ratings for every single game, can we pleeeeeease go 1 day in the newsletter without the word ‘ratings’ in it?”

Andrew, I feel you. I think there’s far too much ado about ratings from week to week, season to season. But today, excuse me, I would like to discuss … ratings. Specifically, the NBA’s dip to start the new season—and whether it matters.

As always, I welcome your take: email [[email protected]] or reply directly to this email.

— Dan Roberts [[link removed]], FOS EIC

NBA Ratings Rorschach Test: Buy the Dip

John Jones/Imagn Images

Sports fans, particularly those attuned to viewership numbers, tend to get heated about ratings and what causes them to spike or dip.

During his first term, President Trump (a man who loves to tout TV ratings) famously went after the NFL repeatedly [[link removed]] in highly specific tweets about the league’s ratings, like this one [[link removed]]: “NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country.”

The NFL did see its ratings decline significantly in 2016 (down 8%) and 2017 (down more than 9%) for a range of reasons [[link removed]], but the league got the last laugh as ratings soon rose again and kept rising. This season, NFL viewership had its best September in nine years [[link removed]], then whipsawed [[link removed]] as the presidential election approached. Through Week 10, game broadcasts have averaged 17.3 million viewers, the highest number since 2015 [[link removed]].

Considering all that, consider the NBA. The opening week of the new season saw double-digit percentage declines [[link removed]] for primetime games on ESPN and TNT, and the second week of this season again saw declines [[link removed]].

We wrote about that, and I noticed this reader tweet [[link removed]] in response: “The election and the World Series was on. The ratings only went down for one week out of two weeks so far. Fake news.” (Like I said: People feel strongly about ratings.) Well, it wasn’t fake news—the ratings numbers are real—but I can appreciate the spirit of the tweet, which I would venture to say was that the dip doesn’t matter, and there was an obvious reason for the dip.

Indeed, the World Series was on, the most high-profile Fall Classic in seven years [[link removed]]. And then the election [[link removed]] sucked a lot of air out of the living room. Whether those were the sole causes and NBA ratings will bounce back, unfettered by baseball and politics, is uncertain.

If you ask Shaquille O’Neal, the culprit is too much three-point shooting [[link removed]]. “I have a theory that [the ratings] are down because … everybody’s running the same plays,” O’Neal said this week on his podcast. “I don’t mind Golden State back in the day shooting threes, but every team is not a three-point shooter.” (The average team is shooting 37 threes a game this season, up 50% from 2015; the reigning champion Boston Celtics are averaging 50.)

NBA commissioner Adam Silver pushed back on Shaq. “I don’t think it has anything to do with the three-point shot,” he said this week in an interview on Cheddar [[link removed]]. “I think we’re just looking at a couple weeks of ratings, there’s always some unique things, this year we were up against a World Series … you had a presidential election which was commanding an enormous amount of attention.”

If you ask me, there’s a lack of compelling storylines so far this season.

The media mania over LeBron and Bronny James playing together culminated in just four minutes of them on the court together [[link removed]] (and the only game in week one that was up from the year before) but is now done, as Bronny is where he belongs: the G League.

LeBron will turn 40 in December. Curry and Durant are both 36. Victor Wembanyama, one of the game’s brightest young stars, doesn’t play on a great team. The Celtics look dominant again, which many fans may not be excited about. (Last year’s NBA Finals ratings were down 3% from the year before, and the NBA playoffs were down 12% overall [[link removed]].)

Of course, leagues have limited control over storylines on the field or court. Andrew Yaffe, the former NBA social media czar who became CEO of Dude Perfect, noted that in our interview last month [[link removed]]: “It’s very unpredictable. … You’re at the behest of what happens on the court. Sometimes the storylines are great, and the players and the teams that our fans want to see advance advance, and you get sort of a magical experience like the 2016 Finals between Steph and LeBron, and Kyrie [Irving] hitting one of the most iconic shots in NBA history. And then other times you don’t get that.”

On one hand, the ratings dip may already be over: Night 1 of the Emirates NBA Cup, the league’s second in-season tournament, was up 71% from last year’s first night [[link removed]]. But was that a Cup bump, or a Curry/Klay Thompson bump?

Back to our readers, who have strong takes on ratings: Carla Davis tweeted [[link removed]], “It’s Curry. He has a history of highest nba ratings. But it was also because it was steph vs klay. There were other cup games on. If it was about the cup, those other games would do high ratings also.”

We’ll see whether this is a sustained rise or just a Cup bump that vanishes when we return to the regular, non-tournament season. When a league’s ratings dip or rise, it’s never just one thing. (In 2019, NBA primetime ratings fell nearly 20% [[link removed]] in the first two months of the season, and the league cited too many injuries to stars.)

Whatever the causes, there’s no way the global powerhouse NBA is sweating it. The idea that lower ratings for last year’s Finals and this year’s first two weeks means the league’s broadcast partners overpaid for the new $77 billion rights deal [[link removed]] is a leap—the deal was worth what companies were willing to pay for it. The league also boasts a young, social-media-savvy audience, and it sustained strong ratings over many years even with such a high volume of games over its long season.

“We have more social media traffic than any time in our history; there’s a huge global marketplace of interest in the NBA,” Silver told Cheddar. “I think the best things are ahead of this league.”

He is no doubt correct about that.

SPONSORED BY TICKPICK

Game of the Year Has a Cost to Match

Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes have formed the NFL’s best QB rivalry. The Bills [[link removed]] superstar has led his team to wins in three of their four regular-season matchups, while the Chiefs’ [[link removed]] two-time league MVP has galvanized his team to wins in all three playoff games.

Their eighth meeting Sunday in Buffalo is not only the leading candidate for game of the year, but also a possible AFC championship preview between arguably the league’s two best teams.

That is reflected in the ticket prices. According to TickPick [[link removed]], the current get-in price is $321—57% higher than the Bills’ next home game against the reigning NFC champion 49ers ($204)—while the $481 average purchase price has risen 40% since the season started ($345).

Read the full report [[link removed]], and download the TickPick app [[link removed]] and get $15 off your first purchase of $99+ with code FOS15.

Good Week / Bad Week DSG Moves Forward, Rays Relocate

Detroit Free Press

Good week for:

Diamond Sports Group ⬆ The regional sports network operator will finally be able to exit bankruptcy [[link removed]] after receiving court approval for its confirmation plan Thursday, a day after MLB withdrew its objection to the company’s restructuring [[link removed]]. DSG, which was in debt of about $9 billion at the beginning of its bankruptcy period 20 months ago, has created revised rights fees with its partners, which consist of 13 NBA teams, eight NHL teams, and six MLB clubs.

NBA ⬆ The league saw some positive signs in its viewership following a slow first two weeks of the season [[link removed]]. Viewership for Steph Curry’s debut last Wednesday [[link removed]] had a 30% increase over the comparable window last year, while the first set of Emirates NBA Cup games was up 71% [[link removed]]. However, ratings are still down overall, with TNT down 3% versus this point last year and ESPN down about 28%.

Bad week for:

Rays ⬇ Following Hurricane Milton, the club has already had a go of it—and now, they’ll officially lose home field for the upcoming season. The Rays will play 2025 home games [[link removed]] at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, which is where the Yankees host spring training. The St. Petersburg city council also concluded the damage to Tropicana Field will cost $56 million to repair [[link removed]], so it’s a tough pill to swallow.

NASCAR Cup Series playoffs ⬇ Joey Logano cemented his legacy as an all-time great by winning his third Cup Series championship Sunday, but his win reinvigorated the debate about the motorsport’s postseason format. The Penske driver defended his win during an appearance on The FOS Interview [[link removed]]—but NASCAR is already reportedly considering changes to the format [[link removed]].

You Might Have Missed Women’s Sports in the Next Trump Era

Mandi Wright/Imagn Images

As we wrote last week [[link removed]], it’s going to become increasingly difficult to talk about sports without politics in the same breath. That’s especially the case for women’s sports, writes FOS’s Amanda Christovich. [[link removed]]She took a deep dive into how proposed policies in the second Trump administration, such as dismantling the Department of Education, will spell changes for Title IX [[link removed]] and the future of women’s sports and transgender athletes. The president-elect’s anticipated moves are poised to transform the landscape as we know it.

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