Viewership is down for the NBA, ESPN sports related programming, and NFL Hard Knocks

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Can be summed up pretty easily.

1: After the first couple of games, people realized that (despite there being some good games) these were still end of regular season games. The most compelling basketball was following the teams competing for the 8/9 seed, and all four were teams that a lot of people that aren't really into the NBA don't really follow. Also, the scheduling was crazy. There were days that games were on at like 10/11 AM out here on the west.

2: It's been said a bunch of times in here, but networks don't get concerned until key demos start underperforming. They're still doing alright there.

3: Hard Knocks was set up to fail. There wasn't much promo, they're covering two teams without much buzz, and without preseason games, coverage of training camp is more tedious than usual. And having watched the first episode, shyt is gonna be trash this year. They had little to nothing to work with for an hour long show.

4: News is going to be crushing everything in just straight up viewers until January, at minimum. Election years are normally great for cable news networks, and this election will be the title holder for fukkery for the forseeable future. On top of that, the pandemic is still feeding them tons of viewers.

Realistically speaking, none of these networks should be sweating this all that much, assuming those in positions to be concerned have been paying attention.
 

rbksNgirbauds

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Nobody cares about this damn bubble ball to keep it 100. You can keep tryna convince yourselves it’s the same, or that it’s actually better if you want to :mjlol:
And the playoffs coming around ain’t changing that.

This shyt is not the NBA. Just cuz a couple of people find a purity to the sport with no fans doesn’t mean you aren’t in the minority , as reflected by the numbers

And to blame it on being the summertime ...:mjlol:
That’s wen people are the most starved for sports like the NBA cuz don’t nobody be wanting to watch MLB and WNBA games.
 
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Nobody watches nba games once mid April comes along every damn year. Unless your team was fighting for an 8th seed. These aren’t games worth watching for the most part. Next week this will change a little but it will definitely pick up once the 2nd round begins.

this has always been the case
 

blankstairz

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Millions of people from all over the world that are fans of the NBA are too busy stressing about how to keep food on the table and a roof over their head. Add in the fact that families are stressed out on how to deal with their kids schooling. They are not rushing to the TV to watch fukkin sports. Also bars and happy hour is dead. I use to always hit up happy hour to catch the games.

It's not rocket science

This right here.

Plus, some have lost loved ones.
 
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Nobody cares about this damn bubble ball to keep it 100. You can keep tryna convince yourselves it’s the same, or that it’s actually better if you want to :mjlol:
And the playoffs coming around ain’t changing that.

This shyt is not the NBA. Just cuz a couple of people find a purity to the sport with no fans doesn’t mean you aren’t in the minority , as reflected by the numbers

And to blame it on being the summertime ...:mjlol:
That’s wen people are the most starved for sports like the NBA cuz don’t nobody be wanting to watch MLB and WNBA games.

Exactly.

Sports is about entertainment and theater. Bubble basketball is neither entertaining nor compelling theater.
 

staticshock

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Similar to how NASCAR has historically embraced right wingedness, the NBAs gone the opposite route. That’s perfectly fine if that’s what you want to do, just know that a loss of fans and a loss of revenue might come with it :yeshrug:

NASCAR as a sport entity doesn’t endorse right winged ness

There may be certain drivers who have right wing views & who have right wing sponsors but NASCAR isn’t about to tell drivers and owners who they can’t and can’t accept sponsorship from cause they’re all about making money.


They probably didn’t give a fukk in the 50s, 60s, & 70s but it’s been changing since the 80s.

I knew shyt was different when NASCAR put out a video condemning racism and discrimination before the NFL did earlier this year
 

THE MACHINE

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It doesn't take long to develop different habits. Sunday was church time in America until the NFL boom. People didn't believe us when we weren't watching NFL when they blackballed Kaepernick. The truth was after the first few weeks of missing games you develop new habits and forget about it. Weeks and months of no sports didn't make people jump to the screen when they came back, people developed new habits like watching national news, following elections, BLM, family time, new hobbies and live sports became "meh".

The fans will trickle back in as they redevelop their sports watching habits but long breaks don't make people yearn for it, people move on.
 
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NASCAR as a sport entity doesn’t endorse right winged ness

There may be certain drivers who have right wing views & who have right wing sponsors but NASCAR isn’t about to tell drivers and owners who they can’t and can’t accept sponsorship from cause they’re all about making money.


They probably didn’t give a fukk in the 50s, 60s, & 70s but it’s been changing since the 80s.

I knew shyt was different when NASCAR put out a video condemning racism and discrimination before the NFL did earlier this year
Up until recently they had rebel flags at their events breh :francis:
 

BXKingPin82

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staticshock

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Up until recently they had rebel flags at their events breh :francis:

the organization didn’t have the flags. Fans would bring them in their RVs, and they made a rule that if fans were flying them, then they wouldn’t point their cameras towards wherever the flag was in the 90s. They officially banned fans from bringing them in earlier this year tho but I see what you are saying
 

OJ Simpsom

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Give the defending champs all noon games in round 1 :camby:Hope they have record low ratings throughout the entire playoffs.
 

Mr Hate Coffee

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Millions of people from all over the world that are fans of the NBA are too busy stressing about how to keep food on the table and a roof over their head. Add in the fact that families are stressed out on how to deal with their kids schooling. They are not rushing to the TV to watch fukkin sports. Also bars and happy hour is dead. I use to always hit up happy hour to catch the games.

It's not rocket science

I think the bolded is an exaggeration. Sports is a distraction... one that people usually welcome. The issue(s) imo are:
  • Most of these games didn't matter. Ratings will pick up once playoffs start
  • Scheduling. I had no idea when tf most of these games were on. Even when I found out, I usually had something better to do.
  • People have canceled cable by and large... I'd imagine tv watching habits in general have changed.Sports was the last bastion of scheduled/live TV and people may have stopped caring. The playoffs will be the true test
I don't think the social stances or the "stress of the pandemic" are as big as a deal.
 
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