"The NBA...ratings are down 48% in the last 12 years and they have fallen off a cliff this year and Adam Silver's solution is let's make the courts brighter...Go ask the Democrats. Be warned, once you detach from regular people in America, you will pay a price." - Colin Cowherd pic.twitter.com/V3wifBWu5a
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 13, 2024
There's been a lot of online discourse with regards to the NBA losing viewers and even more about how to fix the issue. I am in no way an avid NBA fan, but I find it fascinating how a league can drive away so many fans in such a short period of time. The NBA could be considered the second-most popular sport in America (hardcore baseball fans might disagree) and an institution in a way, so it's very surprising how there is such a lack of appetite to watch the games?
Without listing out all the online critiques (i.e. too many threes, flopping, etc.), personally, I would say the main issue is people these days just have way more media to entertain themselves, and the NBA isn't equipped to acquire back those fans they lost. It's far easier to throw on a YouTube video or fire up Steam than it is to watch a game these days, and if you can't indoctrinate more kids then in the long-run you're fricked as a growing league and business.
Besides just the low hanging fruit of "LOL BIPOCS" what do you guys think the main issue is/are and how can the NBA remedy this decline (if possible)? I know we're all r-slurs here, but I feel like we'd get a less overly biased take than from say the NBA Twitter and NBA reddit users that's why I ask.
Thanks for taking this long journey with me, and just know once we hit land you will be sold into slavery 
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The fan base of the NBA is probably the hardest to monitize of all major sports. Theyre relatively young demographic vastly prefer just the watch highlights.
Gameplay wise, the 3 is ruining the game. Nobody minds watching elite shooters like curry take crazy shots, but having every offense in the game be predicated on every player shooting every open 3 is just boring. Idk how they fix it, maybe start with getting rid of the corner
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They should keep the 3 but make dunks 3 points as well so people can start driving to the rim and if you get trucked, then its a skill issue and not a foul.
I kinda miss when the NBA had dunks and bulldozed motherlovers in the way.
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Basketball Americans are some of the most hyper-consoomerist people in the country, though. How can you not sell shit to them?
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Cause they don't buy stuff they steal it
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when I say Basketball Americans, I mean pretty much every young male who has closets full of Nike athletic wear, buys the latest NBA 2K every year, and knows Drake's whole discography front to back.
They are absolutely passively obsessed with the aesthetic of a certain subset of mainstream brands. It should be extremely fricking easy to market to these people.
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