Ratings for Sunday's NBA All-Star game crashed and burned.
Only 5.94 million viewers tuned in on TNT.
But the decline in viewership has been a long-term trend that started immediately after the 1998–99 NBA lockout, which lasted for more than six months and resulted in the cancellation of that season's All-Star game.
The game has never recovered.
The 1998-99 wage dispute between millionaires was just too much for the general public.
In the years just before the 1999 game was canceled because of the labor dispute, viewership was always over 10 million. The year the All-Star game returned after the lockout year, the game took its first hit with a decline in viewership of 34.9%.
And under the "leadership" of the anorexic woke NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, things have gone from bad to worse. The viewership on Sunday was 71% below the pre-lockout audience of 1998.
It is worse now because the player who has the biggest spotlight on him, LeBron James, is a wokester and Silver does everything he can to link the NBA with the "woke experience" while fans just want to watch a basketball game.
As David Hookstead put it, "it really does seem like a lot of fans have just given up on the NBA. It’s not hard to see why. The league went from being about winning games to lecturing America about politics."
During the Michael Jordan era, Jordan never talked about politics, never. The only exception was when his creepy coach, Phil Jackson, put pressure on him to endorse Jackson's old Knick's teammate Bill Bradley when he ran for president. Jackson was running Bradley's campaign. That went well.
The only chance the NBA has to gain back fans is if the next top superstar is not a wokester and if the NBA owners replace Silver as the commissioner with someone that is going to clean out the woke coprolite that Silver has spread inside NBA arenas.
-RW
In light of this crash in viewership how do players warrant the upward rocketing salaries? Ad money?
ReplyDeleteThe broadcasting rights fees are astronomical and the networks can't help themselves.
DeleteWhich means it's big Pharma advertising ALL OF THE TIME!
DeleteAren't they the largest 'advertisers'?
The fact that the the US population has increased by over 60 million during that time frame makes the difference in viewership more dramatic.
ReplyDeleteAll I know for sure is that after last summer's baloney with the NBA, I was done. I used to at least casually keep track of the local NBA team and attend games occasionally with my son, but I don't need to spend my money to support the left wing garbage they have been pushing.
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting that the biggest woke of all the owners, Mark Cuban, doesn't ever have black stars. He had Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki. Even after trading Nash, he often went to foreign born players to fill roles, and the closest he came to a black star was Josh Howard, whose career was shortened due to lack of emotional intelligence.
ReplyDeleteNow he has two more foreign born white players as his primary team leaders in Luka Doncic and the Porzingas guy (not gonna even try on his name.)
Mark Cuban might be a racist...
David B.
David, I don't buy that. Dirk was an all time great. Luka was the best player in that draft, and already one of the five best players in the world inside of three seasons. Porzingis was acquired for chump change from the hapless Knicks.
DeleteMe neither Rick. I am just highlighting the irony. Cuban is so woke. He should eat his own dog food, so to soeak.
Delete11 time All-Star has a message for the woke cancel/victim crowd:
ReplyDeleteCharles Barkley refuses to apologize
https://youtu.be/6v4_0o1n0uE
RW may be correct...or maybe changing tastes and new forms of high-tech entertainment competition is driving "old school" entertainment out of business. Much like the decline of the circus.
ReplyDeleteI remember back around 1970 when my Uncle Tony was driving me home from 5th grade basketball practice and he told me that the NBA was fake. I was stunned like when my dad told me Santa Clause wasn't real.
ReplyDeleteBut I knew they were both telling me the truth.
The NBA has always been in the same class as roller derby.
When Michael Jordan went off to play baseball the refs called games to drive the bulls not to win it all again. It was so very transparent what was being done for ratings. What little interest I had evaporated to nothing. The more I saw how professional sports was contrived for ratings and how teams that weren't good for the ratings had to be so very much better to overcome a league's desires was one of the factors that drove my admittedly low interest to zero.
ReplyDeleteJordan was NEVER called for "Traveling", which "His Airness" always did when he drove for the basket.
Delete