National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver, in a new interview, dismissed the steep drop in television ratings the league has suffered in recent years.
Last week, sports broadcaster Colin Cowherd pointed out that NBA television ratings have fallen 48 percent over the past 12 years. He attributed that to Mr. Silver's failure to connect the league with “ordinary Americans” and lead it to respond to far-left activists instead. Cowherd likened the collapse to a similar situation for the Democratic Party, which lost Middle America in the recent presidential election.
But Silver dismissed the ratings slump, insisting it was just a sign of a change in the way Americans access media. and in him interview On The Athletic, Silver blew everything off by saying, “The ratings are down a little bit.”
Silver went on to point out that cable TV and all three major networks have seen ratings declines by “double digits,” and that the new world of sports ratings is rapidly changing how people view sports. He also claimed that viewership for men's and women's college basketball is declining.
“We're almost at the tipping point where people are watching more programming on streaming than on traditional TV,” Silver said.
He continued: “And that's why with the new TV deal starting next year, all games will be available on streaming services.” And moving to a streaming service allows you to do all kinds of things from a production standpoint that you can't do on traditional TV, aside from how the actual game is played on the floor. All sorts of new features, all sorts of new options and screens are available. ”
“The vast majority of people consume us through the media rather than directly, so we need to be very careful,” Silver concluded.
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