Ladies and gentlemen, these are some of the highlights of the modern NBA. We are constantly being told by the mainstream media that this is the most skilled generation of players in the history of the league. These are the most gifted, these are the most talented players that we have ever seen.
And to be honest with you, this is one of those rare instances where the media isn’t lying to us. The NBA as a league has evolved. The league has changed. This generation of players, they are highly skilled. The NBA as a league is incredibly polished with the assistance of their pretend friends in the mainstream media.
The NBA does an excellent job polishing this turd. So, why in the hell are their ratings in the pooper? Why are regional networks that broadcast the league in local markets, why are they going bankrupt again? Right now, the NBA is struggling to the point that the salary cap for next season, it has declined by a million dollar.
To my knowledge, there’s only one logical reason for a salary cap decline. It means your revenue has declined. Correct me if I’m wrong here. Didn’t the NBA just sign a new broadcast deal with the networks worth billions of dollars every year? Didn’t Adam Swindler just extort the networks out of billions of dollars for this incredibly bad product that rarely or maybe even never delivers during the regular season? If I remember correctly, NBC was projecting to lose hundreds of millions of dollars because of their new broadcast deal with the NBA.
But that shouldn’t affect the league. They are getting their money whether they draw an audience or not. So, how in the hell is the salary cap declining by a million dollars next season? You know, in most cases, decline is a gradual process. The NHL experienced a rapid decline in the mid 2000s, but that was because they went on strike and decided to cancel an entire season.
But in most cases, that’s just not how it works. The decline is a gradual process that happens slowly over many years. Take MTV for example. MTV has never been more irrelevant than it is today. For Gen Xers and millennials, MTV was literally the voice of our generations. It set trends, stars on MTV, they were the original influencers.
But if you look at the decline of the network, it didn’t happen overnight. It happened with a series of bad decisions over 10 to 15 years. They cancelled TRL. They eliminated MTV News. They stopped producing shows like The Realworld Road Rules. To make matters worse, they replaced those legendary shows with 24-hour reruns of ridiculousness.
This network went from averaging millions of viewers. Hell, there was a point when Jersey Shore was pulling 7 8 9 million viewers. MTV went from averaging millions of viewers to struggling to hit 300,000. If you look at the NBA, their decline is kind of similar to the decline of MTV. Matter of fact, they both declined during the same period.
Contrary to the belief of the mainstream media, the NBA is nowhere near as culturally relevant as they were 15 or 20 years ago. The only thing keeping this league in the mainstream is the mainstream media. I don’t know about you guys, but in my daytoday life, no one is talking about the NBA. We talk about the NFL. We talk about college football.
Hell, when we’re on the golf course, we’ll talk about the PGA. But none of my friends who follow sports, they’re not ever talking about the NBA. So, how did we get here? How did we get to the point where a league with a television package worth $76 billion is having to lower their salary cap by a million dollars next year, which means NBA players will be making less money.
I think it’s because the NBA made the monumental mistake of neglecting local markets. The NBA has conditioned their fan base to follow players instead of following teams. Which means the NBA has essentially conditioned their fan base to lack loyalty to their product. Make sure to like and subscribe.
You can follow me on Twitter at casec_btl84. Link to the second channel is in the description below. Today on the second channel going to be talking about an embarrassing moment on ESPN from last weekend. The supposed home of women’s basketball has two announcers who were clearly not paying attention to women’s basketball even though they were sitting courtside calling the game on national television. It was a legendary botch.
So if you haven’t already, click the link in the description below. Subscribe to the second channel. Headline at Outkick. March Madness rating show. Americans love basketball but not the NBA. I don’t think this is entirely accurate. I don’t think this is a fair comparison. For starters, the basketball isn’t the main draw in March Madness.
The tournament is the draw. If college basketball were the draw, they would be setting records during the regular season. Now, their ratings were up this season, but college basketball isn’t as mainstream. It’s not as big as it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. This would be like comparing the Masters to the NBA. The Masters is a major draw every year, but the following weekend, no one is watching the PGA.
Now, that being said, Outkick is right. America is not in love with the NBA. Couple of weeks ago, I told you guys that Major League Baseball had surpassed the NBA as the second most popular league in America. Now, some of you guys disagreed with me, but the numbers don’t lie. Baseball has surpassed the league nationally, but the reason they were able to do that is because Major League Baseball, they started at the local level.
Think about the career trajectory of a music artist. I don’t know if this is how it’s done today, but this is how it used to work when artists were actual artists. They had actual talent. Whether it’s a rapper, rock band, country music singer, they pretty much followed the same trajectory. They started out performing at local bars, nightclubs.
They built a following in their hometown. Then they branched out and started performing in other cities or towns in the area. They start performing in neighboring states. They graduated from bars to civic centers or small festivals. Once they build a strong following locally, they expand regionally. If they build a following regionally, then they expand nationally.
They go from civic centers to arenas and arenas eventually to stadiums. But it all started locally. When Major League Baseball was struggling nationally, they were able to rely on the foundation that they built in local markets. Nationally, their ratings sucked. Nationally, they were irrelevant. But the Yankees were still a major draw in New York City and the surrounding areas.
The Cubs were still a major draw in Chicago, the Cardinals in St. Louis, the Braves in Atlanta, the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Couple of weeks ago, we compared local ratings between Major League Baseball and the NBA. In the 17 cities that have both leagues, Major League Baseball outdrew the NBA in 14 of those 17 markets.
Then they wonder why their regional networks are going bankrupt. First, it was Fox Sports and their regional networks. Now, Main Street Sports, which owns the local broadcast rights for damn near half the league. Next month, they will cease to exist. Well, Uncle KC, this isn’t the NBA’s FAULT. IT’S CORD CUTTING, DAMN IT. THE NBA has a young fan base.
These kids in Gen Z can’t afford their monthly subscriptions to Lonely Man’s, much less the exorbitant rates that cable providers charge. Somehow baseball fans are able to afford it. This is not a cord cutting issue. Blaming cord cutting is an excuse. The truth is, the NBA has a serious problem, at least during the regular season, with their Encore product.
The league is constantly being compared to the WWE. Now, the jock sniffers in the media, they try to convince us that the NBA isn’t rigged. Nick Wright will take a break from delivering powerful sermons on the trauma of living with white guilt to convince us that the NBA is legitimate. Come on, peasants. There’s no way the NBA is rigged.
LeBron told me so when I was massaging his feet last night. You can believe what you want, but I find it unfathomable that the Mavs traded Luca Donuch to the Lakers last year and somehow they land Cooper Flag with the number one pick in the draft three or four months later. Now, Nick Wright calls it a coincidence. He calls it a miracle.
I call it a script. NBA coaches and players, they are being investigated and arrested for betting on games. Half the league is tanking. Half the league is losing intentionally because Adam Silver has made it damn near impossible to build a team any other way. here in the next year or two, the Oklahoma City Thunder, they’re going to be forced to dismantle the roster that they drafted because they’re not going to be able to afford it.
They are being penalized for building a team the right way when they should be penalized for allowing their star player to play the game the wrong way. But even with that being the case, the NBA can overcome those issues. Hell, grown men have known that the WWE is fake for decades and they are still sitting in the front row swapping boogers.
Even though it’s not the main reason, cord cutting is partially to blame for the NBA struggles locally. They lost a massive subscriber base of people who were paying for their product but not watching it. Sports channels, they would often be included in packages with other networks that people were actually watching. So women were subsidizing ESPN and regional sports networks for decades even though they weren’t watching and had no interest in watching.
But the main reason the NBA is struggling locally, they have conditioned their fan base to follow players instead of following teams. And for years, the players have given fans every reason not to watch. There is no loyalty in the NBA. Steph Curry. Guys like Steph Curry that stay with one franchise their entire career, that is rare.
The problem with conditioning your fan base to follow star players, they never build a sense of loyalty to a franchise, generational loyalty that they pass down to their children. Player gets injured, fan stops watching. When fans are loyal to teams, it doesn’t matter who’s on the roster. They are loyal to the name on the front of the jersey instead of the name on the back.
The NBA is the only major league that is set up like this. NHL fans are passionate about their team. Same thing in the NFL, Major League Baseball, college football for decades. And this actually started with David Stern. The NBA marketed players instead of marketing teams and now they are facing the consequences.
Sound off in the comments below. I’ll see you guys later.
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