The Intangible Variables Impacting NBA Viewership

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Friends,

There’s no way around it — the 2020 NBA Finals matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat, from a viewership perspective, has been an absolute disaster.

Here’s the data:

• Game 1 was watched by an average of 7.4M people, which made it—at the time—the least watched NBA Finals game in history (data started in 1988).

• Game 2 was even worse, with an average viewership of 4.5M — a 68% drop from last year’s Game 2 (which included a team from Canada) and comfortably the least-watched NBA Finals game ever recorded.

Since the death of George Floyd on May 25th, and subsequent steps to increase awareness around social justice by the NBA, the “Go Woke, Go Broke” conversation has been continuous.

Don’t believe me?

Just check out Twitter 15 minutes after the TV ratings are released, you’ll almost certainly catch a dispute between Conservative Media Personality Clay Travis and Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban.

Whether the reasons are right or wrong, certain media organizations have continuously referred to the decline in NBA ratings as a lagging indicator of fans disapproval of the league-wide protests for social justice.

But what if the data we are benchmarking it to is inaccurate?

(Source / ESPN)

I’ve always said — when it comes to storytelling, or the formation of a persuasive argument, I believe that there should be a statistical foundation of facts. But when facts are inaccurately compared, or taken out of context, it changes the entire basis of the argument.

To be clear, I’m certainly not naive enough to think the NBA’s increased public display in support of social justice hasn’t been a contributing factor to the decline in viewership — simply put, it has.

My point is that we are comparing 2020 NBA Finals viewership numbers to previous years, which were anything but similar. In addition to making incorrect comparisons, additional reasons why viewership is declining, are not exactly tangible — which inherently makes people uncomfortable.

Here’s a few intangible variables that I believe are impacting NBA viewership.

Increased Competition

For the first time in the history of North American sports, we’ve had a period of time where all of the following sports were occurring at the same time:

• NBA

• NFL

• MLB

• MLS

• NCAAF

• Tennis

• Golf

• Horse Racing

• Auto Racing

• Rugby

• Cycling

Sure, all eleven sports weren’t technically being played on the same day. But the point is that the supply and demand equation has fundamentally shifted when it comes to sports viewership.

Think about it this way, everyone has a decision to make when they turn on the TV. With more supply (sports available), that will inevitable shift demand for individual sports, like the NBA, downward.

With sporatic TV data and no accurate way to capture the shift, some will claim it doens’t exist — basic principles of supply & demand say otherwise.

Lack Of Fan Involvement

The history of energy and enthusiasm that fans bring to the NBA Finals is undeniably one of the best parts of the championship series.

This year, we have none of that.

Given everything that has gone on in 2020, we are lucky to even be playing games — but that doesn’t mean we can discount the impact that a lack of fans has had on viewership.

The NBA has worked hard to make the playoff environment as “normal” as possible, by implementing fan controlled video boards and fake crowd noise, but realistically fans aren’t fooled and the experience isn’t even close.

For example, polls have shown that 28% of people are watching less of the NBA because “basketball is boring without fans.”

Outside of media-conducted polls, which inherently tend to be small, bias, and occasionally misleading, there is no accurate way to determine the impact of no fans on overall viewership numbers — but just because the data isn’t available, doesn’t mean it isn’t a contributing factor.

Continued Cord-Cutting

The continued emergence of cord-cutting shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone — this is a trend that has been occurring for years, and will potentially continue for decades.

Here’s a mind-blowing statistic — based on the current rate of cable-cutting, and newer generations lack of signing up in the first place, within ten years it’s estimated there will only be a 50/50 chance the home you walk into will have cable (Source).

So if we know that cord-cutting has been occurring at a continuous rate for years, how does that have an impact on the significant drop in NBA viewership?

Acceleration.

In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve officially entered a recession. As impacted individuals attempt to navigate through one of the most difficult times in personal financial history, we’ve seen an increased rate of cost cutting — specifically when it comes to cable.

In case you don’t believe me, here’s some supporting evidence (Source):

It’s just one factor, among many others, but the acceleration of cord-cutting is certainly contributing to the decline in NBA viewership — especially when you consider that the majority of cord-cutters turn to the illegal streaming of live events, which aren’t counted in viewership data.

Perhaps the most obvious factor?

Game 1 was a blowout, which most likely led to the significant drop from Game 1 to Game 2, considering nothing else changed. You can expect Game 3 numbers to be even worse, given Game 2 was also a blowout — but after Miami took home a win last night, perhaps game 4 viewership will show some life?

Ultimately, the NBA’s continued public display in support of social justice has certainly been a contributing factor to the overall decline in viewership, but despite what Twitter says, it’s just that — one of the many contributing factors.

As always, don’t allow the narrative to push out supporting evidence in favor of a good story. Additional context matters and shouldn’t be ignored.

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Extra Credit

Speaking of the NBA — the Atlanta Hawks revealed their “City Edition” uniforms for the 2021 NBA season last night, which will honor Atlanta native Martin Luther King Jr.

All proceeds from the sale of the jerseys will go toward “economic empowerment programs for Atlanta’s communities of color.”

(Source / Atlanta Hawks)

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