How To (Actually) Fix The ASG

[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.

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

Respectfully This analysis is a pretty ridiculous made up thought exercise based off completely random numbers you made up out of thin air. Comparing to the actual percentage drop from last year to this year is a way more realistic analysis. I don’t really get why people want to just create completely imaginary numbers or factors rather than the pretty clear fact that the NBA All star game is rapidly losing fans. We also literally have facts to know that what you are proposing is false.

“ The league’s national games on ABC, ESPN and TNT are averaging 1.6 million viewers, which the NBA said is up 1 percent over last season, per Nielsen data. Those games also average a 0.9 household Nielsen rating, which is flat to 2021-22. Additionally, the national games on those three networks are averaging a 3.0 share, which is up 11 percent over the same number of games from last season“

Are we proposing 25% of NBA fans happened to lose TNT over all star weekend and will reboot on Thursday when the league is back? This is approaching world is flat territory….

[hpantazo]

If the progressive, precipitous drop in ratings year to year does not make them fix the all-star game, nothing will.

[Redz]

Have them play themselves in an NBA 2k game.  It would be more competitive.

[celticsclay]

If the progressive, precipitous drop in ratings year to year does not make them fix the all-star game, nothing will.

Maybe I am naive but I actually believe there will be some changes next year for two reasons.

 1) despite the mental gymnastics a few have done to downplay the numbers this is actually a crazy drop in viewership. Something that regular season games on TNT are not experiencing. That costs the league money and what they can sell ads for during this event. They do actually care about that.

2) There was very high profile criticism of the game. One of the coaches, Michael Malone literally called it the worst basketball game ever played. Jaylen brown called it a layup line. It’s unusual to see this level of criticism and the league noticed.

What the changes will be? I have no idea. Upping the cash prize seems like one obvious thing and SGA even suggested this to reporters after the game. I also think they are hearing the calls of fans wanting east versus west or USA versus world.

[celticsclay]

Out of curiosity does anyone here actually prefer the captains picking teams to east versus west? I thought it was a fun idea for a year but it has gotten really stale at this point.

[Donoghus]

Out of curiosity does anyone here actually prefer the captains picking teams to east versus west? I thought it was a fun idea for a year but it has gotten really stale at this point.

No, its terrible.

[Goldstar88]

Out of curiosity does anyone here actually prefer the captains picking teams to east versus west? I thought it was a fun idea for a year but it has gotten really stale at this point.

I agree. It’s very gimmicky.

[Roy H.]

Out of curiosity does anyone here actually prefer the captains picking teams to east versus west? I thought it was a fun idea for a year but it has gotten really stale at this point.

No, its terrible.

Yeah, dividing teams by conference at least gave fans a side to route for.  Who do Celts fans route for when it’s Tatum vs. Brown?

[Goldstar88]

Out of curiosity does anyone here actually prefer the captains picking teams to east versus west? I thought it was a fun idea for a year but it has gotten really stale at this point.

No, its terrible.

Yeah, dividing teams by conference at least gave fans a side to route for.  Who do Celts fans route for when it’s Tatum vs. Brown?

I rooted for Brown in the first half and Tatum in the second.   

[SparzWizard]

Saw an idea out there on social media...Team USA vs Team World.

Where US-born NBA players take on against international-born NBA players. Giannis, Joel, Jokic, Luka, SGA...surely will crush put on a fight against Team USA's best lol

[Roy H.]

Saw an idea out there on social media...Team USA vs Team World.

Where US-born NBA players take on against international-born NBA players. Giannis, Joel, Jokic, Luka, SGA...surely will crush put on a fight against Team USA's best lol

I think the concern there is, do less worthy players get chosen to fill out one roster or the other?

[Moranis]

Saw an idea out there on social media...Team USA vs Team World.

Where US-born NBA players take on against international-born NBA players. Giannis, Joel, Jokic, Luka, SGA...surely will crush put on a fight against Team USA's best lol

I think the concern there is, do less worthy players get chosen to fill out one roster or the other?

That would absolutely happen.  There aren't enough foreign players worthy of all star nods every year.

[Moranis]

This year the International Team would have been

Giannis
SGA
Markkanen
Siakam
Luka
Embiid
Jokic
Iring (arguably since he has played for the US but was born in Australia)

So that is 7 or 8 of the 24 and Giannis couldn't even really play.  The international team would have a great starting lineup, but there just aren't enough quality foreign players to make it work.   The NBA is not the NHL.


Now if you went my idea of 4 teams of 6 with a mini-round robin of 10 minute games (2-5 minute halves).  You could have an international team compete in that.  You could probably work it out to have all of the teams divided out by some location of birth, college, etc.  to get the other teams and just not have a draft.  Though I would just do a snake draft top vote getting gets 1st pick, then 2nd highest, 3rd highest, and 4th highest.

I think the mini-round robin would be fun.  So the games would be something like this

1 v 2
3 v 4
1 v 3
2 v 4
1 v 4
2 v 3

Every team plays 3 games.  The seeding is based on vote getters, so being the top vote getter, has you play every other game, the 2nd vote getter doesn't have 2 in a row, but does sit out 2 games, while 3 and 4 each have 1 back to back. 

I think that would be fun to see condensed games more like the playground since there is just 1 sub per team.  Make each game worth 300k (or some figure) where the winning team gets the full amount (50k a person).  So if you won all 3 games, each player would walk out with 150k.