Ratings: New NBA Tournament Is A Failure

The NBA had hoped to boost its sluggish regular season with a new in-season tournament called the NBA Cup. The idea was to incentivize players to take regular season games more seriously and, in return, increase interest among television viewers.

That hasn't happened.

This season, viewership for the NBA Cup is down double digits (10%) from last year's inaugural season. The tournament is averaging 1.5 million viewers on TNT and just 1.16 million viewers on ESPN.

To date, the entire NBA regular season on ESPN is down 28% year over year. The league was already coming off a disappointing season in which its playoff viewership decreased by over 12%.

But, but, but, the league just signed a $77 billion rights deal with Disney, NBC, and Amazon.

No, the NBA is not at risk of closing shop. That said, the league's popularity has diminished greatly. Viewership for the entire NBA is down around 48% since 2012. 

Four of the five lowest-rated NBA Finals of the past 30 years have occurred in the past four years. (11.64 million viewers in 2024, 12.4 million viewers in 2022, 9.91 million viewers in 2021, 7.45 million viewers in 2020.)

But, but, cord-cutting and Netflix!

Nope.

So far this season, the NFL has averaged 17.3 million viewers, its highest average since 2015. This past World Series was the highest-rated since 2017. 

College football is surging. So is the UFC. Over 108 million live global viewers tuned in last Friday to watch Mike Tyson fight Jake Paul. Even the WNBA Finals set an ESPN record in viewership this fall.

The NBA is the only notable professional sports league experiencing viewership declines. And the declines are substantial. 

So much so that, according to the Wall Street Journal, there are already "executives inside NBCUniversal" who believe the company paid too much ($2.5 billion a year) for its upcoming NBA package.

Disney, which agreed to pay an annual fee of $2.6 billion per air on ABC and ESPN, can't be thrilled either. Nor can Amazon Prime, which secured rights to stream future NBA Cups.

The NBA pulled off quite the coup, getting three broadcast partners to overpay for a product in obvious decline.

What's more, there is not just one easily fixable issue leading to the NBA's drop in interest. The list of factors is lengthy. The league is too political, the regular season doesn't matter, players don't take games seriously, small market teams struggle to compete, star power is lacking, and games feel more like 3-point shooting contests than actual basketball games.

As OutKick's Joe Kinsey opined, "The NBA is unwatchable garbage." He provided the following evidence: 

Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal agrees.

"I have a theory that [the ratings] are down because … everybody’s running the same plays," O’Neal said earlier this month on his podcast. "I don’t mind Golden State back in the day shooting threes, but every team is not a three-point shooter."

Even friendly media allies like The Wrap are also sounding the alarm on the NBA's diminishing popularity, penning the following paragraph:

"While it’s only been a month, the rating dip may well not be a blip. The NBA’s ratings have been heading in the wrong direction for several years now. And the drop-off is even more severe than that, considering Nielsen started including out-of-home viewership from places like sports bars in its ratings in 2020. In other words, the ratings are beefed up compared to a decade ago — and the NBA still can’t match its past performance."

Have the NBA stars considered trying the Trump dance?