One NBA player dared to stand for the anthem, and then had the audacity to not wear a BLM shirt He was, of course, immediately mocked by sports media Then it got worse He blew out his knee ESPN guy put up a poll to ask his viewers how funny that was He was later forced to apologize
First round NBA playoff ratings are off 27% from last year and down 40% from two years ago. Lowest first round ratings in 11 years.
Like most others, my interest in the NBA has waned too. But now that the Rockets beat the Lakers in Game 1, I dont expect the refs to call it fairly. The NBA must be desperate to get Lebron James into the Finals. No James in the Finals will be a ratings disaster for that league. Translation - Rockets are going to get hosed
More on pro sports TV ratings in the flag-kneeling era This past Thursday had the NBA playoffs with LeBron James and the Lakers in the Conference Finals. Game 4 was probably THE key game in the series It drew 4.6 million That was worse than a random Thursday episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight brought in 4.74 million More - Game 2 of the Eastern Conf Finals recorded the lowest Conference Finals viewership in 17 years The first round of the playoffs were off 27% year-over-year, and off 40% from two seasons ago Lastly, not a single NBA playoff game in 2020 has beat the ratings for "The Last Dance" which was a documentary on ESPN
I am completely done with NBA and MLB. The only reason I'm not done with football is because I still enjoy the product too much. The mindless virtue signaling seems less widespread among football players IMO, so I'm tolerating it for now. A lot of football players still stand, where in NBA virtually all kneel. On the first day back from COVID in MLB there was a clip of an entire team kneeling while holing a long rope or some nonsense, there's no reason to check back in after that, so no idea what they're doing now. Kneeling for the national anthem does literally nothing for civil rights. We stand for the anthem as a sign of respect. When you choose to kneel you are deliberately showing disrespect. Spitting in the face of your customers before every game is not going to earn support for your cause even if your cause is just. Imagine if you went to your favorite restaurant, and the receptionist gave you the finger and said screw you. Then the receptionist explained that they are not insulting you, but doing it to protest child abuse. When you say you don't like being flipped off, they respond by asking, why are you siding with child abusers, are YOU a child abuser too? How long would you continue going to that restaurant to get flipped off and insulted, even though you like the food?
Only diff between my attitude and your comments Longb is I’ve only kept college football, dumped NFL and so far not slacking off. More disappointed with dumping the Volleyball and soccer ladies than anything else.
Ladies soccer won their first game of season against OU. With that accomplished, may they lose the rest of their matches.
Ratings for the NBA Finals are down big. Game 3 this year, which features the team most loved by the US sports media complex (LeBron James and the Lakers) is off 58% year-over-year compared to Game 3 last season, in which one of the teams was from Canada. On avg, the Finals are off 45% from last year. This is the lowest ever viewership since they started tracking it in 1994. Thus, each game sets a new all-time record low. How embarrassing. Some people blame the virus from China but you would think all those folks who could not attend games in person would be anxious to watch on their TV sets. But its not happening. The reality is, which the sports media still refuses to acknowledge, is that ratings are off due the politicking, the kneeling, the hypocrisy, the constant, campaigning for Biden, and the hate of the US/love of China. Fans dont wont to get preached at. Will they learn their lesson?
They seem to be willfully stupid on this issue, so I doubt they will learn any lesson at all. What might help the players learn something is when contracts start to shrink along with ratings. Until then, I don't expect anything to be learned at all.
The problem is, the top players of this era all have their big contracts already and so wont be affected. They will never recognize that correlation because it probably wont happen to them. It may happen to the younger stars, still on their rookie deals and those guys not even in the league yet, but we are still talking years before they see it/feel it. I suspect the stars of today will never be forced to put 2 and 2 together because it will never hit them personally. So they will have no regrets. What we need is for the networks to start lowering bids for new contracts, and then for China to drop them completely. That would get all of their attention. We need more NBA people with some backbone. We need more Daryl Moreys.
Oh I absolutely agree the idoits who have already been paid are immune to learning anything, and about the obvious time lag before viewership levels impact player contracts. The question is how long will it take the networks to react to the ratings. Will it happen immediately, or only once the current network contracts expire?
Last thing I remember seeing about this was they were still being bid up! At some point in the future, it will show up on spreadsheets and there will be a price to pay. Until then, retardation rules the day.
the leagues are counting on the short attention span of the American public. They are convinced that the average person will give up on their protest out of boredom and go back to being sports-vegetables in about 6 months. They'll spin this as a COVID-effect for this year and try to start next year as though nothing ever happened. The only way they learn anything from this is if people care enough to stay away next season as well. I know for me personally, the longer i stay away the easier it is to stay away.
Time will tell if they are right or wrong but, using myself as the barometer, I think the latter. I am finally ready to give it all up (for the first time in life). I am teetering on the verge right now as we converse. My sister makes fun of me now as it gives her the chance to say, "I tried to tell you but you just wouldnt listen, and that was decades ago!" It's different things, but she does have a point nonetheless.
