How To (Actually) Fix The ASG

[Roy H.]

Wow.  Shedding 1.5 million viewers year to year seems pretty large.

[Donoghus]

Wow.  Shedding 1.5 million viewers year to year seems pretty large.

Yeah, its not in a good place.

[Phantom255x]

Why not kind of do what hockey does. Maybe do like 4 quarters of 3 vs. 3 basketball (each quarter maybe reduced to 10 minutes), making it feel like a pickup game. But before the game, predetermine the rotations what 3 players play for each team and in what quarter. So every player in theory plays the full quarter, then at the end of it, the next 6 players go in for another quarter of 3 vs. 3 while the players who just played are done for the night.

I think that'd work. I don't think it'd kill guys to play for about 10 minutes knowing that's all they play. It'd also be cool maybe having some of the best clutch closers in the game playing the 4th

[wdleehi]

Add Rock and Jock style play.   (for those to young, look up MTV Rock and Jock basketball)

[jambr380]

Isn’t a lot of the decline just the fact that nobody has cable anymore? Everybody I know who watched throughout the weekend just streamed everything. Also, highlights are seemingly more popular than watching games now.

[slamtheking]

Wow.  Shedding 1.5 million viewers year to year seems pretty large.

Yeah, its not in a good place.

I'm really amazed anyone still bothers to watch or even take notice of it at this point. 

[slamtheking]

Isn’t a lot of the decline just the fact that nobody has cable anymore? Everybody I know who watched throughout the weekend just streamed everything. Also, highlights are seemingly more popular than watching games now.

explains the bulk of what ESPN posts every day.  you'd think they could produce something other than 'highlight' clips and SAS rants.

[Donoghus]

Add Rock and Jock style play.   (for those to young, look up MTV Rock and Jock basketball)

I hear Dan Cortese is available.

[Moranis]

If they aren't going to do East vs. West, I'd like to see 4 teams of 6 and they play a round robin.  Full court, but 10 minute games (two, 5 minute halves).  Don't need to do things like jump balls, each team just starts a half.   

Top 4 vote getters are the captains, snake draft with the order determined by fan votes. 

Every team would play 3 games and each game you win, the winning team gets 25k a person (or something like that). 

[celticsclay]

Isn’t a lot of the decline just the fact that nobody has cable anymore? Everybody I know who watched throughout the weekend just streamed everything. Also, highlights are seemingly more popular than watching games now.

This was like 25% drop from last year. Are you proposing that there were 25% more people streaming this year than last year? That clearly doesn’t make any sense.

[bdm860]

Isn’t a lot of the decline just the fact that nobody has cable anymore? Everybody I know who watched throughout the weekend just streamed everything. Also, highlights are seemingly more popular than watching games now.

This was like 25% drop from last year. Are you proposing that there were 25% more people streaming this year than last year? That clearly doesn’t make any sense.

I think it makes sense.

Is 100% of the decline due to a rise in pirated streams and people just watching highlight clips on Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, etc?  No.

Is a large portion of the decline due to that though?  I think so, especially following the trend of the previous lows being 2021 and 2022.  4 of the 5 lowest rated All-Star games (since 1990) are from the last 5 years.  Hard to find legitimate stats, but I would imagine that correlates with an increase in viewership for pirated streams and clips.

While other things go into it (format, fan interest, quality, players involved, etc.), all things being equal I would think it would be a major factor.  And it's not just the All-Star game, other areas of the NBA plus other sports are all seeing declines (Finals, World Series, Super Bowl, BCS, Final Four championship, etc., all of which have their last 5 years making up the majority of the least watched years over the last 20 or so), which I think help point to the larger trend of declining viewership due to a changing landscape (less TV, easier access to free streams+highlights).

[Moranis]

Isn’t a lot of the decline just the fact that nobody has cable anymore? Everybody I know who watched throughout the weekend just streamed everything. Also, highlights are seemingly more popular than watching games now.

This was like 25% drop from last year. Are you proposing that there were 25% more people streaming this year than last year? That clearly doesn’t make any sense.

I think it makes sense.

Is 100% of the decline due to a rise in pirated streams and people just watching highlight clips on Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, etc?  No.

Is a large portion of the decline due to that though?  I think so, especially following the trend of the previous lows being 2021 and 2022.  4 of the 5 lowest rated All-Star games (since 1990) are from the last 5 years.  Hard to find legitimate stats, but I would imagine that correlates with an increase in viewership for pirated streams and clips.

While other things go into it (format, fan interest, quality, players involved, etc.), all things being equal I would think it would be a major factor.  And it's not just the All-Star game, other areas of the NBA plus other sports are all seeing declines (Finals, World Series, Super Bowl, BCS, Final Four championship, etc., all of which have their last 5 years making up the majority of the least watched years over the last 20 or so), which I think help point to the larger trend of declining viewership due to a changing landscape (less TV, easier access to free streams+highlights).

I no longer have TNT so I can't watch it anymore.  I think that is true of a lot of people.  Put the game on ABC and I can watch it.

[Donoghus]

Current NBA TV contract is up after 2024-2025.

I think you'll see some shifting or changing of TV partners. Even read one report that NBC was toying with idea of getting back in.  The dynamics have definitely changed since their last TV deal.  Also, ESPN can no longer goggle up every live TV right that comes up.

[celticsclay]

Isn’t a lot of the decline just the fact that nobody has cable anymore? Everybody I know who watched throughout the weekend just streamed everything. Also, highlights are seemingly more popular than watching games now.

This was like 25% drop from last year. Are you proposing that there were 25% more people streaming this year than last year? That clearly doesn’t make any sense.

I think it makes sense.

Is 100% of the decline due to a rise in pirated streams and people just watching highlight clips on Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, etc?  No.

Is a large portion of the decline due to that though?  I think so, especially following the trend of the previous lows being 2021 and 2022.  4 of the 5 lowest rated All-Star games (since 1990) are from the last 5 years.  Hard to find legitimate stats, but I would imagine that correlates with an increase in viewership for pirated streams and clips.

While other things go into it (format, fan interest, quality, players involved, etc.), all things being equal I would think it would be a major factor.  And it's not just the All-Star game, other areas of the NBA plus other sports are all seeing declines (Finals, World Series, Super Bowl, BCS, Final Four championship, etc., all of which have their last 5 years making up the majority of the least watched years over the last 20 or so), which I think help point to the larger trend of declining viewership due to a changing landscape (less TV, easier access to free streams+highlights).

I no longer have TNT so I can't watch it anymore.  I think that is true of a lot of people.  Put the game on ABC and I can watch it.

While I am sorry to hear that you can’t watch the tnt games any more, there was definitely not a 25% or even 5% drop in people with access to TNT in the last year. So this is definitely not why it dropped.

[bdm860]

Isn’t a lot of the decline just the fact that nobody has cable anymore? Everybody I know who watched throughout the weekend just streamed everything. Also, highlights are seemingly more popular than watching games now.

This was like 25% drop from last year. Are you proposing that there were 25% more people streaming this year than last year? That clearly doesn’t make any sense.

I think it makes sense.

Is 100% of the decline due to a rise in pirated streams and people just watching highlight clips on Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, etc?  No.

Is a large portion of the decline due to that though?  I think so, especially following the trend of the previous lows being 2021 and 2022.  4 of the 5 lowest rated All-Star games (since 1990) are from the last 5 years.  Hard to find legitimate stats, but I would imagine that correlates with an increase in viewership for pirated streams and clips.

While other things go into it (format, fan interest, quality, players involved, etc.), all things being equal I would think it would be a major factor.  And it's not just the All-Star game, other areas of the NBA plus other sports are all seeing declines (Finals, World Series, Super Bowl, BCS, Final Four championship, etc., all of which have their last 5 years making up the majority of the least watched years over the last 20 or so), which I think help point to the larger trend of declining viewership due to a changing landscape (less TV, easier access to free streams+highlights).

I no longer have TNT so I can't watch it anymore.  I think that is true of a lot of people.  Put the game on ABC and I can watch it.

While I am sorry to hear that you can’t watch the tnt games any more, there was definitely not a 25% or even 5% drop in people with access to TNT in the last year. So this is definitely not why it dropped.

I don't think using percentages the way you are is the best way to rationalize it.

Cable subscribers dropped by 4m people last year (according to this source)  NBA All-Star game viewership only dropped by 1.7m.  So that 1.7m drop can easily fit within the 4m with plenty of room to spare.

Did every one of the 1.7m lose access to TNT? I doubt it, but I bet a significant percentage did.  If 20% of people who lost access to TNT would have watched the All-Star game otherwise, that explains away almost half the drop in viewership.

In reality though, there's probably a variety of reasons where the bridge analysis looks something like this:

+100k    new fans to the NBA
-450k   existing NBA fan not interested in format/style of game
-50k    no longer fan of NBA
-800k   no longer has legal access to TNT
+50k    gained legal access to TNT
-175k   prefers to watch just the highlights
-100k   had other commitments (work/school/personal)
-200k   something more entertaining was on
 -75k   favorite player not in it
=-1.7m   total viewership drop