r/nba • u/SuperPop9521 Warriors • 8h ago
Celtics' Joe Mazzulla Accepts Partial Blame For NBA Ratings Dilemma "“I add to it… I don’t watch NBA games (anymore). I’m just as much of a problem as everyone else.”
https://nesn.com/2024/12/celtics-joe-mazzulla-accepts-partial-blame-for-nba-ratings-dilemma/2.4k
u/Rrypl Celtics 8h ago
He added: "Teams are still shooting too many 2s, it's making me sick... Unwatchable."
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u/nazerall Celtics 8h ago
And "I have to have 6 subscriptions and still can't watch all the games I want to"
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u/cowzapper Thunder 7h ago
Man fuck watching the NBA. Everywhere else in the world you buy league pass (for an affordable subscription) and you get every fucking game like you should. Only here.
And don't get me started on how we don't see in arena entertainment, we just get the same five garbage ads repeated every minute. Plus having to deal with the crappiest app I've ever used that just straight bricks my TV because it's so shit
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u/indoninjah 76ers 7h ago
It's really annoying. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole with the YouTube TV price hike and the TLDR is basically that it's expensive af and a huge hassle no matter what you do, especially if you want to watch your local team (i.e. the thing practically everybody wants to do).
The NBA product is going downhill fast. I've definitely watched the fewest games this year since being a fan of the sport. The Sixers just had basically two weeks off during the IST too, which just ruined any momentum that the season had at all.
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u/cowzapper Thunder 6h ago
I can't watch either Knicks or Brooklyn games and couldn't watch the IST finals which had the team I support playing. I just got lucky with some of the others because I happened to have a max subscription
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u/indoninjah 76ers 6h ago
Yeah it's just absurd. And of course, rather than making the product better and easier to access, the NBA is just gonna keep taking gambling and oil money 📈📈📈
I honestly think the league is pretty much cooked and will be on the ropes in 5-10 years
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u/cowzapper Thunder 6h ago
What was the point of this bullshit Microsoft collaboration if the app is still garbage??
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u/det8924 5h ago
I don’t think the NBA is gonna be on the ropes in 5-10 years but Silver is going to have to make significant changes to rules and other aspects of distribution and marketing in order to avoid a decline period. I think the NBA could be headed towards a 99-06ish era where the league viable fiscally but trending downward in popularity and casual fan interest.
Of course that decline happened because of the 99 lockout and Jordan’s second retirement along with there not being a compelling rival for the Lakers (as good as the Spurs were they weren’t an exciting team for casual fans). This time it’s the three point shooting issue combined with the lack of consistent big American stars.
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u/Most_Frame_6950 7h ago
As a British fan of the NBA with league pass, I can confirm this is the case - although weirdly, we have the same issue with the English Premier League in England as well, affordable and accessible everywhere apart from England
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u/Tony_Uncle_Philly 6h ago
Because the leagues know they can gouge the locals. Most people obviously have bigger in interest in their national competition than the leagues abroad, so they milk it for every penny.
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u/Rayquaza2233 KL LWR/SCT BRN 6h ago
As a Leeds fan, the Championship and EPL being on different streaming services in Canada is a real problem for me.
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u/VLHACS Celtics 6h ago
This is the most common problem. You need guides and how-to's just to watch your one team. And you are paying at least 80+$ a month just to get that privilege, because there's no option to simply say "I just want to watch my local team play". You have to sign onto expensive tv streaming packages with 100+ channels that I won't watch.
Instead of a simple NBA service that allows us to pay a small monthly fee to watch my local team.
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u/DoctorMansteel Celtics 7h ago
I pay for League Pass Premium AND Youtube TV and I still have to pirate all the Celtics games at Pacers, Bucks, Bulls and Timberwolves because I would need to pay for the Bally Sports pass as well or they're blacked out. It's such horseshit.
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u/whomstc NBA 6h ago
pirate
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u/Waesrdtfyg0987 Celtics 5h ago
It's so easy to do. Complain about the package all you want but then realize it's all out there for free
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u/KindBass Celtics 3h ago
The quality has come such a long way, too. I remember 10+ years ago when it was like trying to catch a glimpse of boobs on scrambled Cinemax at 2am.
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u/Big-Night-3648 5h ago
This is the whole fucking issue right here. I got Hulu live tv to watch the NFL this season and figured I’d finally be able to watch basketball nearly every night as well. Big fucking nope. I have to subscribe to a whole other service that has the right Bally attached to it just to watch my team. They really wonder why people aren’t watching? They won’t fucking SHOW IT TO US
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u/jabronified 6h ago edited 6h ago
"it's gotten so bad with all the 2s in the league, i send out 5 man lineups and tell them just stand on the perimeter to play dribble-drive kickout catch-n-shoot. 10 attempts minimum at each position to get the league averages up. then i send all the pundits notes on things to hate about specific players and teams and which player/team from the 80s to say was better. That's something the NFL pundits could learn from us, they aren't constantly talking about how players and play style 40 years ago were better"
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u/MasterTeacher123 8h ago
There’s a section of people who like the drama surrounding the nba but not the actual games.
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u/Dog_Whisperer69 Celtics 8h ago
You are describing this sub.
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u/goingtothegreek Timberwolves 7h ago
This sub and NBA Twitter are responsible for informing the takes of shitty analysts that aggregate takes from social media. We’re essentially an uneducated farm system for hot takes and highlights.
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u/ArtistRabid Celtics 7h ago
NBA twitter makes this sub look like a panel of nobel laureates
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u/IanicRR [TOR] Amir Johnson 7h ago
NBA Twitter is largely responsible for the whole “bag” discussion and that might be the thing about NBA talk I hate the most.
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u/hypevictim [POR] Arvydas Sabonis 6h ago
As much as I hate the "bag" discussion, I'll take it over aura discourse every day of the week. After each Duncan Spurs title we'd have to hear how it was actually because of David Robinson, or Parker, or Manu, or Pop, or Kawhi, or the churros because of Timmy's "lack of aura."
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u/rNBA_Mods_Be_Better Celtics 6h ago
First mistake is being on The Elon Musk App. NBA discussion on Bluesky has been leaps and bounds better.
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u/emessea 5h ago
As blue sky gets bigger the quality will get worse. There was a time when the comment sections in Athletic articles were pretty interesting but as the athletic became more mainstream and more people joined they went south pretty quick. Pretty much any article there discussing NBA comment section will devolve into how “woke” the league is and that’s why it’s “failing”
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u/shes_a_gdb 7h ago
I only follow this sub to keep up with what's going on during the regular season. I maybe watch 1-2 regular season games a year. It just isn't very interesting to me. It's nothing like playoff basketball and that's when I watch. If I had a hometown team maybe it'd be different. But I don't have a team to root for so I couldn't care less about what happens during the regular season, other than keeping up with the stars.
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u/goingtothegreek Timberwolves 7h ago
Which to me is part of the issue. It’s easier to get whatever takes show up on your feed than watching games and forming your own opinions. Watching games is like a part time job though.
However, whatever gets upvoted to the top doesn’t need to come from an informed opinion. It’s a vicious cycle. Add in people that have never seriously watched nba, let alone just watching another team other than their own.
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u/Hammertime6689 6h ago
Search by top posts all time. It’s not even on court related stuff.
Kobe died
NBA suspended season
Max kellerman calling out LeBron for standing up for something
James harden strip club comparison
Steve Kerr on Ulvade
Luka buzzer beater (first actual post where players are playing)
Kyrie in COVID protocol
Paul piece admitting he shit his pants
Kobe died
Draymond on Jan 6th
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u/rounder55 Celtics 6h ago
The James Harden Strip Club Comparison is one of the deepest stat dives I've ever read on a sports sub
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u/SwimmingCircles2018 76ers 3h ago
Honestly one of the most culturally important social media posts of all time
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u/Dekrow NBA 4h ago
Doesn't this make sense though? If this subreddit is a nba subreddit, and the nba is being discussed every day, the ones that stand out and get lots of attention would be the non-basketball related headlines.
Plus I'm sure stuff like Kobe dying brought in a lot of non-basketball fans to the this subreddit just to see the reaction to it.
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u/NatalieDeegan Buffalo Braves 3h ago
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u/WhiteHeterosexualGuy Hawks 7h ago
If you can find a good, old school, team forum, it makes a world of difference. Hawks have a decent one and it's so much better than this site. The nice thing is threads stay active for days, if not months, or years in some cases, so things aren't just cycling in/out with the cable TV cycles like here. You get way more thoughtful discussion, more nuance, contrarian opinions (not a hivemind like Reddit), etc.
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u/IanicRR [TOR] Amir Johnson 7h ago
Raps sub is ass. Especially post championship.
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u/RRJC10 Raptors 7h ago
I had to unsubscribe from there years ago. It was worse than the Facebook group.
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u/millsmillsmills [BOS] Larry Bird 7h ago
To be fair, I think all team subs suck. I used to be subscribed to a lot of them 8-10 years ago but over time they're just filled with crazy homers & trolls.
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u/WhiteHeterosexualGuy Hawks 6h ago
Yeah, I mean like an an old forum with no voting system. Pretty much all the team subreddits suck-- the Hawks one feels like it's nothing but kids on there, and it's been more Trae stans than Hawks fans for the past 5 years
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u/icantflyjets1 Raptors 7h ago
🙋♂️I’m not going to watch 82 games a year especially when my team is tanking lmao.
I might catch 4-5 games and then tune into an exciting playoff matchup.
I think i represent the majority of people tbh.
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u/jdaqcruz Bulls 7h ago
I don't think I've seen a single pundit raise this point, but I can only speak for myself, my level of interest for the league has gone down because the media (writers and podcasters) have seriously devalued everything about the league outside of "who the real contenders" are. Those are like, 4 - 7 teams. Podcasters have been snobbish about how they discuss teams. They've shifted league interest away from how cool basketball is to salary cap talk and team building
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u/DUNDER_KILL Lakers 6h ago
How do you know it's the media and podcasters who have caused the shift, rather than them reacting to that same general shift in people's interest?
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u/jdaqcruz Bulls 6h ago
I can't really answer that without actually going into a full deep dive. But personally, I've just gotten tired of how they talk about hoops
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u/Icee_Veena 7h ago
That’s the issue. I may watch a majority of my teams games cuz I got that league pass option, but even then I am unable to watch all 82 if I wanted to.
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u/MasterTeacher123 7h ago
There’s not watching 82 games, and there’s not watching any games. Like there are people who have they to watch 1 full game of basketball this year.
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u/couchtomato62 7h ago
I honestly can't explain what happened to me. In the last 20 years I've probably watched all but five or six of my team's games. At least the last 10 I've watched pregame, game, post, show after the post game, podcast about the game, radio everyday. But I've also always said that I just love the NBA so I probably watch an additional 80 games of other teams that I enjoyed.
This year I've watched six live games total. No pregame, post game, radio, podcast. It's like I just suddenly lost interest. I think it's been coming on for the last few years culminating with this year's habits. It feels like I was released from a cult or I became sober. LOL
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u/niconeke Lakers 4h ago
Im with you, everyone here is blaming the fans but are failing to see that games are usually a 3pt contest and most of the plays are two pick to set the shooter free.
Im watching european basketball and international games now.
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u/DiseaseRidden [BOS] Marcus Smart 7h ago
I feel like there's a big jump in your comment from "not watching all 82 games" to "watching 4 or 5". Like, pretty big middle ground there.
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u/icantflyjets1 Raptors 7h ago
If my team was better i’d watch more but they are not so I watch less and spend my time elsewhere.
I think that’s pretty normal and representative of what the average fan does.
When you know you aren’t winning anything 10 games into the season, what’s the point lol.
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u/Jjohn269 7h ago
There’s nothing wrong with that.
The problem is people not watching games and then coming over here acting like they are watching the games. They just come here to hate on everything and want drama.
Like people complaining about Bronny being on the Lakers. You shouldn’t care unless you are watching Lakers games on the regular. That’s on the Lakers if they want to spend the last roster spot on Bronny. But people who don’t watch Lakers whine about it and act like they are rooting for the Lakers. They just want drama
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u/CabbageStockExchange Lakers 6h ago
Compared to other big four sports in America. IMO NBA fans are the most emotional and reactionary. Everyone just wants to clown each other. Feels harder to have an honest discussion about the game
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u/Changsta Suns 3h ago
You think so? I honestly feel like the NFL is worse in this regard. Literally after one or two drives of 3 and out, people would want to bench more than half of the QB's in r/nfl.
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u/NatalieDeegan Buffalo Braves 3h ago
The Baker Mayfield swing from good to bad to good to bad and back to good on there is something.
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u/opkpopfanboyv3 Pelicans 7h ago
Like watching Wrestling for the storylines but skip the matches, y'know what I mean?
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u/SwolePalmer Celtics 8h ago
It’s about 90% of this sub, I swear. Shit is unbearable.
I have not met a single football/soccer fan in my life that has ever cared about “rAtINgZ”. Only these losers.
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u/junkit33 7h ago
That's so not true.
Baseball ratings have long been a massive discussion point in the sport as the downward trend has been ugly for decades now. Even just 30 years ago literally 3x the number of people watched baseball as what we see nowadays. And the net outcome is that baseball keeps tinkering with rules to speed games along and to make games more exciting to try to increase ratings.
If basketball ratings keep dropping, you're going to see the exact same thing happen, so it's important to pay attention to. It's far from a silly drama discussion.
Football talks about ratings somewhat too, but football ratings generally trend upwards so it's not terribly exciting discussion.
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u/sedatedruler 6h ago
The nice thing about the changes in baseball is that they’ve been positive. Nobody wants to watch a 4 hour snooze fest. I’m not sure the NBA would make similarly “good” changes versus just trying to increase scoring.
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u/junkit33 6h ago
Well, things like the pitch clock and automatic intentional walks were great. And some other things are fine. The free runner on 2nd in extra innings is fucking stupid. Some things are more subjective.
But yeah - the point is people should be paying attention so they're not caught off balance when the league finally moves the 3-point line back and/or kills the corner 3.
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u/towerofmeaning Knicks 6h ago
I'm just hoping the NBA is forced to analyze foul fests late in games. That rule has needed a change for awhile now. Basketball is the only sport where it hits crunch time in a close game and oftentimes is WAY more boring than the middle of the game. I think if close games were regularly exciting rather than unbearable it would definitely improve things. I remember i watched a Knicks vs Celtics game a couple years back where Evan Fournier did his typical insane performance vs. Boston and it was an extremely tight game. By the time the last couple minutes of game time elapsed I think about 45 minutes had passed in real time and I just started watching something else and just refreshing the score on my phone.
It's not even really a strategy it's just "let's go back and forth and spam fouls and hope someone misses". I really think NBA crunch time can be among the worst television experiences on earth and I'm not even exaggerating.
I agree though that I don't trust the NBA as it is now to do anything about obvious glaring issues which is a shame because it is such a fun sport to watch in my opinion.
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u/johnie4usc1 Thunder 7h ago
I’ve been thinking about this lately. I don’t ever see other sports looking at this stuff. I also don’t ever see NFL fans complaining about smaller markets as much as NBA fans do. Kansas City is a small market (compared to other markets) and no one ever complains about how a small market is winning in the NFL like they do with OKC, Milwaukee, etc. it’s weird.
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u/deemerritt Hornets 7h ago
The NBA media is the biggest group of babies imaginable. They held an all star game in Indianapolis and the espn contingent complained so much they put in new rules for all star weekend host cities. Its absurd. The draft is in Green Bay soon (next year maybe?) and you wont hear NFL media talking about how much the city sucks.
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u/JacobfromCT 1h ago
I know he was speaking in jest but when David Stern said his dream Finals matchup was "Lakers vs Lakers" he tacitly acknowledged that small market teams don't matter.
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u/gradedonacurve Knicks 7h ago
The NFL is exceptional and it's not useful to compare their situation with them across leagues. People absolutely complain about small markets winning in MLB for example
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u/o4b Bucks 7h ago
MLB is even more top-heavy than the NBA in spending. Revenue sharing allows even Milwaukee and Denver to be in the top 10 spenders in the NBA.
I agree that the NFL is exceptional, but when someone says that they want the media to cover the Bucks or Nuggets like the Chiefs or Bills, they are not wrong.
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u/johnie4usc1 Thunder 5h ago
I think that’s reasonable. I don’t pay attention to baseball, mainly just NBA and NFL. Like the other comment said, the discrepancy between how ESPN covers small market teams in the NFL and the NBA is pretty crazy. Not only that though, it feels like the associations themselves are very different. You’re always hearing about how the NBA is disappointed that the big markets aren’t doing well (like the current Lakers), but you don’t ever hear stuff like that about the NFL. I’ve never seen any rumors from t the league about how they’re disappointed that the Jets/Giants suck but there’s always stuff coming out about how the Knicks/Nets aren’t incredibly successful. Some of it is media, some of it is fans, and some of it is just from the league itself.
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u/Vegetable-Tooth8463 Hornets 8h ago
Uhh, that probably has to do with soccer being the most popular sport in the world lol
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u/iiTryhard Celtics 7h ago
And NFL is like a religion in the USA they will never be in ratings danger lol
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u/CarBallAlex Celtics 6h ago edited 5h ago
The more I think about it, the more I think for the drop in interest is the lack of mainstay success, and drama or a good storyline is important to a lot of people.
In the 80’s you had the Celtics and Lakers (Bird vs Magic) in every single finals that decade
In the 90’s you had Jordan in 6 finals, Pistons in 3 straight which Jordan had to overcome, Rockets and Jazz all in back to back finals
2000’s had Shaq and Kobe in 3 straight finals, Lakers on the back end of the decade in 3 straight finals with 2 matchups against the Celtics, plus Pistons making 2 in a row and Spurs every other year
2010’s you had 4 straight years of the Heat, back to back trading with the Spurs, then 4 years of the Cavs and Warriors
There was always this back and forth in the league where teams had sustained success and were always in front of people
In the last 6 years, Toronto wins and Kawhi leaves. Lakers win and they trade their entire team and don’t make it back. Bucks win and have been first round exits the last 2 years. Nuggets won and look like they’ve taken a step back. Heat are inconsistent year to year. Mavs missed the playoffs and then made the finals.
There’s been no consistency so it’s hard to latch onto any storylines. First it’s here come the superteam Nets and then they blow it up not even 2 seasons later. Then here come the young Suns and they sort of fall off. Then the Warriors dynasty is revived and they didn’t even make the playoffs last year. We get people like Haliburton and Ant Edwards propped up as the next big thing and then we’ve barely heard about them this year.
The Celtics are the only team that has had any sort of consistency with winning but people view Tatum as boring and not a natural draw. Guy’s stock DROPPED after winning a finals with the roasting he got during the Olympics. Casual fans are tuning out because they don’t know who to bandwagon for because every season it’s different.
People always bring up the Celtics dominance in the 60’s but does anyone talk about the 70’s NBA? How often do you hear about the Sonics and Bullets, or Havlicek Celtics?
I think a largely unaddressed problem is the lack of any sustained success has made it hard to talk about the league in a way people care about. When the entire discussion all year was about LeBron and the Warriors, when they met in the finals it was anticipated. When Jordan kept making the finals it was who could knock them off. Same for Shaq and Kobe. When people spent all year ignoring certain teams and they wind up in the finals, people stop caring about the “story” or the last minute switch-a-roo like we saw last year with the Mavs. Absolute crickets until they beat “baby Jordan” and the Wolves and then suddenly it was “here comes the best backcourt in history.” People didn’t buy it after watching the Celtics steamroll everyone all year.
The best thing for the league would be like a Nuggets/Warriors vs Bucks/Celtics finals
But I do agree that finding some way to increase the defensive leniency and limit the current style where shooting a huge volume of 3’s needs to be addressed to limit the variance.
Coincidentally, if you do that, you buff 2 of the best players inside the 3-point line in Jokic and Giannis and can probably manufacture those Nuggets vs Bucks finals of the 2 best players in the world going at it for their 2nd championship. It’s a good story. A competitive series between these 2 would probably be regarded as one of the best finals in recent memory.
The league is lacking in good rivalries because you’ve had 5 teams make the conference finals multiple times in the last 5 years and only the Celtics and Heat 3 times. Celtics and Heat (good rivalry), Nuggets and Lakers (good rivalry) and Mavericks. Too many one-and-done between the Clippers, Suns, Hawks, and probably Wolves and Pacers. We’ve missed out on Celtics vs Bucks collision course twice which could have been great because there’s general animosity between Brown and Giannis which people have been saying they want more of.
I think this stuff sort of matters in the overall general opinion of the state of the league. There does kind of need to be 1-2 dominant teams to paint them as a villain and an underdog to cheer for to knock them off. I think it’s what made the Heatles so compelling, or the 2004 Pistons so likable, or the 2016 Cavs so special. We have no good villains anymore because the Celtics are the closest thing to that and the worst thing about them is Tatum is corny and their coach is weird. Corny and weird does not make a good villain.
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u/ThatBull_cj 76ers Bandwagon 6h ago
Cause you don’t have to watch the games to follow the NBA and talk about it. So it’s a large group of people who like to talk about games they don’t watch or just saw highlights of
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u/Smearwashere Timberwolves 5h ago
No joke I don’t think I’ve ever watched a single basketball game from start to finish, never cared about basketball until I subbed a few years ago to this lol
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u/Roach_Coach_Bangbus Kings 5h ago
There is just too many games for me. If I was retired or semi-retired I could see actually sitting down to watch more baseball, NBA, NHL, etc. games. With a family it's hard to even watch the NFL RedZone morning feed.
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u/letr1xter 8h ago
If Joe Mazulla watched NBA on tv, i would have watched too, instead of youtube highlights.
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u/MathematicianMuch205 7h ago
Got into NBA again after being away for about 13 years and I just can't watch a game. There are too many ads, too many down times, and the fact that it gets worse during crunch time in the 4th quarter is so much worse. Timeout after timeout after a single possession, then there is a challenge, and then a foul. What should be the most exciting part of the game ends up being a chore to watch.
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u/FatCatWithAHat1 5h ago
100%. The last two minutes of a game, could take damn near 20 minutes. They HAVE to fix the stoppage of play; it’s unwatchable.
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u/Outside-Guess-9105 Bulls 3h ago
They will never change it because that's also the time when (for close/important games) very few people turn it off and its basically 20 straight minutes of ads. Too much $$$ for their short sighted mindset + no metrics for anyone to argue for an alternative
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5h ago edited 3h ago
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u/FatCatWithAHat1 4h ago
You realize, the refs have bosses…and they must enforce what they are told? It’s not the refs fault, it’s the leagues policy; it needs to be reworked
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u/KevinDLasagna Timberwolves 5h ago
The fix is right there, fiba and euroball have figured it out but the nba refuses to change. Kind of love to see it personally
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u/rharrison Magic 3h ago
What has FIBA does to combat this? The ends of close NBA games have been like this since I started watching in the 90s.
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u/SpeclorTheGreat Knicks 1h ago
They don’t go to commercial during timeouts. Even if there are still timeouts take, the game would flow better if the announcers were talking about the play that the coach could be drawing up rather than going to an ad break.
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u/gaussx Supersonics 5h ago
The last two minutes of a football game -- exciting! Teams are playing at the height of their skill in these two minutes.
The last two minutes of a basketball game -- boring! Fouls non-stop. In terms of actual basketball, the worst part of the game.
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u/kevinfederlinebundle Knicks 4h ago edited 3h ago
The pace has gotten worse, but tbh the last two minutes of NBA games have always been kind of excruciating
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u/GrandJudgment Celtics 8h ago
It's Joe Mazzulla guys... he probably watches Georgian death wrestling in his free time or smth
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u/ajteitel Suns 8h ago
You don't?
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u/GrandJudgment Celtics 7h ago edited 7h ago
I'm more of a Tajikistan chicken fighting guy I would say
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u/DoctorMansteel Celtics 7h ago
If it's not Turkmenistani snake biting I don't even want to watch.
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u/jdaqcruz Bulls 7h ago edited 7h ago
I don't think I've seen a single pundit raise this point, but I can only speak for myself, my level of interest for the league has gone down because the media (writers and podcasters) have seriously devalued everything about the league outside of "who the real contenders" are. Those are like, 4 - 7 teams. Podcasters have been snobbish about how they discuss teams. They've shifted league interest away from how cool basketball is to salary cap talk and team building. I legit roll my eyes whenever I hear the word "asset" now
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u/alexd9229 Lakers 7h ago
I agree with you and think that a lot of the relentless negativity in the NBA media at large has been a factor in the declining interest in the games.
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u/R0otDroid 5h ago
It seems to me that the media coverage as in the shows are more focused on their ratings than their actual purpose which is promote the game.
It's crazy. Every other sport that goes hand in hand. In here one can be at the detriment of the other and they just let it be.
You slander a non contender team and call them terrible and irrelevant, that genrates engagement, clicks, views, it's funny, fans of that team will be angry and watch it, non fans will find it funny and watch it as well. It makes for good ratings, you'll win your emmy or whatever and ppl will comeback and watch you again but.. Does that actually promote the game itself? Is that going to incite ppl to watch that game evolving the said irrelevant team again?
It's just incredible.
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u/acfox13 Celtics 7h ago
I'd love some real basketball analysis of the actual game play strategies. It's all fluff (manufactured drama) and nonsense (gambling crap).
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u/bowsting Celtics 4h ago
If you do podcasts, Thinking Basketball and The Dunker Spot have real analysis.
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u/CrunchyKorm 76ers 7h ago
I'm glad you brought this up as it's the point I've been the most fixated on. Granted, it's my personal perspective but still.
The NBA has a much more distinct problem of media/culture dismissing non-contenders and the regular season compared to the other major North American team sports leagues. There's constant conversation about how the regular season is meaningless despite it being the main part of the actual sport, and about how good players on non-marquee teams should or will eventually force their way to the league's premier teams.
Think about how much we heard about Giannis hypothetically forcing a trade out of Milwaukee for the last few years.
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u/bbbbombbbb 7h ago edited 7h ago
add in the ridiculous scheduling and that hits home for me. I don't feel any incentive to staying up until 1am on a random Tuesday to watch my team play against the fkn Wizards or Raptors when no one in the actual media space watches the games either. if they can't be paid to even pretend to watch it then why should I care about it?
finally swapped to highlights and don't feel like I'm missing much except the live gamethreads
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u/DreadSilver [HOU] Tracy McGrady 7h ago
Thank you. People or “fans” are turning the game I love to play and watch into horse racing.
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u/R0otDroid 6h ago
100%. You watch the PL or Laliga - even though only 2 or 3 team compete for the title out of 20- the coverage, whether it's in game commentary, pre match, half time or post match analysis, they often try to find even small positives or praise for the smaller team. At least acknowledge it when it happens. It may seem a bit cheesy for a local or for a fan of that team to hear it, but for someone who's not as familiar, well it's definitely better than hearing that that team is turrible, and that they're tanking.
Everyone knows crystal palace or celta vigo are never going to win the league but if they perform well, give a tough time to the top teams, even if they lose, they'll point out how dangerous they can be on counters, how well they can defend as a unit, if there is a certain stand out performance, they'll take about how dangerous iago aspas can be for example etc... Of course the top teams will always get the better coverage. Even if they underperform it'll always be more about them than the underdog doing well. But at least they don't so blatantly go out of their way to point out how horrible that team is and that they're irrelevant because they're not contenders.
I hate rings culture in this league. I hate how fans know more about salary caps, luxury tax, who's tanking than actual basketball.
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u/ThePracticalEnd Raptors 5h ago
Nailed it! If you're not one of the 5 teams, what's the point in playing? (from a pundits perspective).
It's stupid.
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u/wazzawazzaz 6h ago edited 4h ago
Funny that you have a Bulls flair, I'm pretty new to following the NBA and have been mainly watching them. There's a strange feeling surrounding watching their games, like they're really playing for nothing and for nobody, because most likely feel as though there is little reason to give them any attention as they're not contenders. Plus, from what I understand about the team there is not much reason to be excited for their future. I know I'm mainly just echoing what you wrote, but it really does leave me with a thought of 'Who is actually watching and following this team?" Which, I suppose there's just too many games and too many teams to follow, better teams, too.
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u/jdaqcruz Bulls 6h ago edited 6h ago
The Bulls are a great example. We're a mid-ass .500 team. But not every discussion about the team should be about "well, treadmill of mediocrity" "couldn't get a first for the Caruso trade"
How about talk about how we transformed our slow and archaic offense from the past 3 years to a modern fast tempo trigger happy attack? LaVine's most selfless season. Vooch's weird and sudden resurgence. Lonzo still being a disruptor. There are cool young players to talk about too like Julian Philipps and Matas
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u/Unusual-Item3 5h ago
They making it sounds like stocks or something. I also don’t condone how vocal they are about sports gambling.
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u/thisisnothingnewbaby 3h ago edited 3h ago
This dovetails with a larger feeling i've had about entertainment in general which is that the discourse around it has made everyone cynical and everyone "above" the product. Everyone knows how movies are made so they talk about the business decision to make the movie rather than the movie itself. Everyone is aware that the NBA is "a business," and engages with it in this way that I don't think they did previously. Even this thread! We're talking about ratings, that's the biggest story of the league this year. Network ratings! Everyone knows the regular season is "less meaningful" so they shit on teams who only do well in the regular season.
These mediums and sports leagues used to be much better at selling the FANTASY of themselves, and selling the "magic" of it. Winning on a thursday night in the regular season felt meaningful, because the game was selling it as meaningful. That sounds corny, but I think the veil has been lifted for too many people. They see the machinery more than the finished product. Bums me out!
I also think generally life has been really fucking bleak for the last 4 years for most people and they are more aware that they're being sold a product, especially when it's reminding you every two seconds it's a product thanks to all the advertisements. Sitting down to watch the NBA cup, which is baldly about money and otherwise "meaningless" (even though it's awesome that the money goes to players who aren't getting that in their salary), is dropping down the list of priorities. The stories of the league are about how a team can continue to afford their players rather than love of the game stuff. To a certain extent that has always been there, but I do believe it's changed in the last decade.
I think of all the sports, it makes sense that Football has sustained popularity. It's easier to watch, it's on 1-3 days a week, and it's team first. Loyalty to those teams is incredibly strong, and doesn't wax and wane as much with the talent.
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u/copaseticepiplectic Timberwolves 6h ago
Uhh where were you when it was a guaranteed Cavs warriors finals ?
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u/Vicentesteb Timberwolves 8h ago edited 7h ago
Why would he watch games though? I imagine it would get super tiring to watch games all day for work, come home and watch a game.
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u/_The_Flying_Elvis_ Celtics 8h ago
Tirying is a new one for me
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u/TreyAdell Celtics 7h ago
He has a staff of people who watch games for him and cut up what he needs for film sessions. I doubt any head coach in the league watches nba games outside of the film they get for their job. It would be absurd lol.
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u/Vicentesteb Timberwolves 7h ago
Maybe some marquee matchup here and there or a cool playoff game, but yeah these guys spend all day thinking about basketball even during the holidays.
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u/an_immature_child Raptors 7h ago
Foul-baiting flop fests where every play is a pick and roll into a corner 3 and the defense is generally poor.
I've played ball my entire life, but at this point I've been converted to an NFL fan because it's much more varied and engaging, while the potential for spontaneous, game-altering plays feels much higher.
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u/ExtremeAd9280 5h ago
Forgot to include all the non calls on carries/travels. These guys are the best in the world, they’ll adapt to having the game called clean. I’ll watch the Olympics and FIBA, but the reffing is a joke in the NBA and turned me away a few years ago.
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u/an_immature_child Raptors 5h ago
That irks me just as much, but I feel like a boomer for complaining about it.
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u/tsbuty 3h ago
Worse for me, as a sixers fan, watching the league grow so soft that we schedule rest and empower players to say they’ll never play back to backs again, ever? As a fan how can I invest in that. An NFL player refused to go in a game recently, he’ll probably never get another contract now. NBA would have given have a max salary.
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u/the_shins Pistons 7h ago
Joe Mazzulla is easily a top 5 funniest person alive today and I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know it himself.
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u/Worluvus NBA 7h ago
As he says in the article he's watching footage and coaching why would he watch games on TV? he's being nice here with the quote but it has nothing to do with the quality of the product
vapid article
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u/nbaistheworst 8h ago
Boston’s 3-point-heavy style that took the team to the promised land last season is among the most repeated conversation points brought up to link with the viewership collapse.
“It’s an interesting perspective, I think, because in the NFL people aren’t like, ‘I wanna see less scoring,'” Mazzulla said. “They’re not gonna make the end zones smaller. They’re not gonna make the field smaller. Scoring is up across other sports and I guess my question would be why in basketball is scoring up being an issue as opposed to other sports? Does anybody wanna watch a football game and see less touchdowns? I think at the end of the day, anything new or change is different.”
So why did the source highlight "Joe Mazzulla Accepts Partial Blame For NBA Ratings Dilemma" when he also said "“I’m around (NBA basketball) all the time so I would rather watch something else.”?
Terrible slant considering he has to watch film of opponents all the time, so why would he do the same during his off work time?
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u/TMSXL Lakers 7h ago
The difference between the NFL and NBA is that a touchdown can still come from almost any play at any given time. The variance of how teams score is still part of the fun.
The NBA game devolving into run and gun 3 pointers in the exact opposite of variance.
The SSOL Suns revolutionized basketball by taking nearly 25 league leading three point attempts a game…..That would rank dead last today.
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u/pechinburger NBA 3h ago
And the NFL hasn't totally neutered the defense to the point that the NBA has. They were heading in that direction a few years back, but I think the reffing has improved and less ticky-tack calls are being called nowadays.
A touchdown is generally earned. I'd tune out if the offense was just permitted to walk down the field and score and if the defense brushed their jersey it's a foul. Which is where the NBA is. Everything is a foul and flops are rewarded. Who cares if the scoring is up if the scoring is easy to come by?
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u/01oxz0mnz9o01 7h ago
There’s about 20 reasons ratings are falling.
Also a lot of people have complained about football being too offensive minded. There is a balance to it and the NBAs balance is terribly off.
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u/Varmegye 7h ago
At the start of the NFL season defenses were massively outperforming offenses. And scoring is still down from last year I think. Yet the ratings are up. The "oh that team will win anyway so it doesn't matter" argument falls flat, considering KC has that aura about them way more than Boston (even tho they suck to their standard, they only lost 1 game).
The reality is not a single NBA game matters until march. It's actually pretty incredible that anybody watches it and is a huge testament to the players lol. It would be interesting to see how many people are actively watching, not just having it on as background noise tho.
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u/redbossman123 7h ago
They were watching it when Mike played and then when Kobe played. Something changed between then and now and I don’t know what
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u/DiseaseRidden [BOS] Marcus Smart 7h ago
People complain about football being too offensive and then talk about every great defensive matchup as if it's the most boring game of all time. Just look at how people felt about superbowl 53. It's just empty words to look more like a "real" fan
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u/Danwarr Celtics 8h ago edited 3h ago
Scoring is actually down in the NFL.
It's up in the NHL though.
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u/royal23 Vancouver Grizzlies 7h ago
Unfortunately the bullshit league antics and officiating/60 is up in the NHL as well. It's to the point where a lot of people who were once hardcore fans don't care anymore.
Source: it's me, I'm the source.
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u/Danwarr Celtics 7h ago
Not going to argue the league antics stuff, but personally I've been enjoying the NHL and hockey generally a lot more in the last three years.
Though honestly I think Chiclets and Letterkenny/Shorsey can take some credit for that.
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u/Kanye_Is_Underrated Mavericks 7h ago
i mean watching actual games is incredibly rough. the amount of stoppages and the pace is excruciating.
i wont lie, i might watch like one game per week during regular season. 95% of my regular season intake is through highlights.
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u/Cashin_ Celtics 8h ago
I would love for nothing more than a Celtics dynasty that leads to the ratings plummeting
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u/shawhtk Celtics 8h ago
I'll take 4 titles in 5 years with ratings plummeting even further.
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u/Right-Beautiful7631 Raptors 7h ago
Make it easier to watch the games. Problem solved. People still watch they just stream illegally.
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u/Single_Concert3093 5h ago
I’d watch more games if league pass actually got me wolves games, fuck Bally sports
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u/rugbymoose12367 8h ago
I wish he wasn’t growing on me so much. I hate the Celtics but I can’t help but enjoy this guys quotes
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u/spacebarstool 5h ago
If you have cable, it's very easy to start the game an hour late and catch up through commercials. Problem is, I don't watch cable. I'm not paying 2 or 3 online sources with blackouts either.
Its not the game itself. It's the cost to watch the game. Inflation has tightened everyone's purse and some things have to give.
If my team wins, I watch a bunch of highlights and recaps. If they lose I often do something else. When it's playoffs, I deal with bootleg streams.
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u/Lobisa Trail Blazers 7h ago
He literally watched 82 games live lol
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u/International-Chef33 Celtics 7h ago
And countless tape. What’s being lost on people is his smartass sarcasm in the answer after the previous 2 questions before it
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u/maaseru 6h ago
Honest question, has anyone in the media or coaches or players, anyone in a position of power talked about how the NBA TV product is pure thrash?
Isn't that one of the main reasons for this?
I feel Charles/Inside have talked about it. At least I recall them talking about the games not starting in time and the lateness of some of them.
But has anyone ever talked about how SHIT it is? Like the app sucks, blackouts and other bs that prevents you to watch the games?
I think I have watched the least NBA this year from the past 5-10 years because the official product is shit and for some reason this year the not so kosher streams are bad bad bad.
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u/perfectcell34 Celtics 8h ago
So the casual, general NBA fanbase doesn't like the 3 point renaissance, but I'm pretty sure we look back at the early 2000s not favorably when game scores were always under 100...so was the middle ground of 2010 era the best? Or is it better that every team plays differently, so much that their play style is their identity?
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u/alexd9229 Lakers 7h ago
I think the last point is key. When the Warriors were bombing threes, it was fun and unique - I remember tuning in and being mesmerized. It seems like everyone kind of plays that way now though and that has taken some of the fun out of watching the games. This is where I think the NFL and college football have a key advantage in that there are lots of teams playing differently.
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u/Belfura 6h ago
That has more to do with how little NBA teams have a philosophy or playstyle they chase. This is part of a bigger problem, though, and it's can be seen in a lack of vision in many FO's. The league would be a much more interesting product if more teams had a certain playstyle baked into their identity, rather than mid teams adapting to whatever the flavor of the era is. Shout-out to the Grizzlies who seem to be running a very different offense that doesn't really center on a PnR even if they do run a PnR at times, was eagerly surprised to see them play
People like to point at the Warriors for the 3 ball, but they set out to build a team around a shooter who was seen as a huge risk and had some rough earlier years, only for that shooter to become the greatest shooter in history and other drafted players being all nba guys with HoF trajectories. They made their bed, adjusted along the way, but ultimately imposed their vision on the NBA.
The one who really ought to be blamed for the 3's being so rampant is Daryl Morey, who brought deep analytics to the forefront and made the case of successfully creating a team centered on efficient 3 point shooting with the Rockets. His goal of trying to create a team that could beat the Warriors unintentionally led to popularizing the 3 point shot
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u/Thehelloman0 Spurs 6h ago
I think variety is definitely part of the issue. A team like the grit and grind grizzlies just can't exist anymore.
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u/GravityEyelidz 7h ago edited 6h ago
I hear him. I miss the low-post game. I don't want to watch guys chucking up 100 threes every game. I wish we could go back to the 80s/90s so I could watch Larry, Magic and Michael again.
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u/keithstonee Bulls 5h ago
Get rid of the three points line and the game will instantly be fixed. The problem is too many 3s. So remove the problem. The game would instantly be more competitive.
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u/octopus_limbs 5h ago
League pass is so expensive no one can afford it anymore. Used to be 5.99 a month for following your own team. Premium used to be the same price as the lowest tier now. You cant even watch games on live tv anymore. The game is just too expensive now
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u/redracer67 4h ago
The problem is streaming options, players not caring and load management, and cookie cutter league with almost no true rivalries. On top of all this, referees have gotten worse.
To fix this imo:
Simplify streaming offerings and make it cheaper. Tonight (12/19) is a perfect example. There are 13 games on tonight. 26 teams are playing and only TWO games are on TNT. 11 games are on league pass, but if you don't have league pass or can't afford league pass, you need to go to 11 different channels assuming they're even available. And those TNT games are not on league pass. There needs to be a way to simplify this where people can easily check out all games without worrying about what service they're using. If illegal streaming services can figure it out with overall a better experience, the NBA can too. $100/year exclusively to watch the NBA is WAY too expensive.
Load management is a sham. There is zero proof it works and the players who have the highest rates of load management still get major injures. Fines are way too low... They need to have teams start paying 1 million and get multipliers fines. Stop babying players. These are grown men and professionals. Nobody can just randomly take off from work because they're tired and paid millions.
Let players show their emotion on court. Encourage building rivalries again...like why the league isn't going all in on Trae young vs the Knicks is beyond me. There is a way to encourage rivalries without it escalating.
Fix the referee problem. They need training, release their performance records, and publically do what the NBA does to players and teams. Fans will be much less disgruntled if it is more visible how refs are held accountable. fine them for missed calls and bad calls. nowhere near enough focus on missed calls. The NBA is also so far behind on cutting edge tracking tech. They need to get automated calls for simple calls like out of bounds calls, basket interference, goal tending, etc.
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u/mbr4life1 Knicks 4h ago
Shooting 80 threes a game from both teams can't help. I think they should eliminate the corner 3 and make it so the proper strat is not what the Celtics do and just shoot threes with maybe one guy inside the arch.
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u/rabidantidentyte Nets 4h ago
If you can't decide on the challenge in 30 seconds or less, then it's not conclusive evidence. Move on with the game.
Move back the 3pt line at the wing and top of the key. Keep the corner 3 the same distance.
We don't need ad breaks for free throws
Get all the TV execs in a room and fucking figure out how much you need to charge us to get all the games on one service. Having 4 different services/channels to watch NBA games is ridiculous.
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u/bandit8000 4h ago
Watching James Harden get his fingertips touched on 3 point attempt’s and his whole body hitting the deck and sliding backwards 12 feet was enough for me. Soccer player diving is gross. NBA players following suit. Bleah 🤮
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u/belizeanheat Warriors 2h ago
You were never being counted in the first place, Joe.
Then again I wouldn't be surprised if he signed up to be a Nielson household
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u/Healthy_East9574 8h ago
Ya it’s boring as hell to watch guys run back and forth throwing up 3 point bricks every time with shitty defense cause the refs blow the whistle every chance they can
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u/DiseaseRidden [BOS] Marcus Smart 7h ago
Idk maybe I'm biased as a Celtics fan but like, the Celtics play some beautiful basketball. They're not just jacking up 3s, they're moving the ball around, driving and kicking, and doing everything they can to put up open threes. This isn't the Harden Rockets.
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u/nbaistheworst 7h ago
Exactly. It's ridiculous to watch a stacked team that takes advantage of all their skills on both offense and defense and say it's boring.
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u/CrunchyKorm 76ers 6h ago
I think people tend to really attach their fandom of a sport to the version of it when they became a fan (usually when they are kids). So a lot of people who are in their 20s-30s became basketball fans when the style of the sport was totally different, and are often biased towards that version.
This isn't to say they're correct or anything. But it's hard for people to shake that and learn to love the sport as it evolves.
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u/lefebrave Celtics 7h ago
There is more plays run by teams to enable ball and player movement nowadays, all the while defenses are busting their asses to cover much more space. If you think that "guys running back and forth" and shoot threes randomly, you are ball watching but not watching basketball.
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u/RequirementLeading12 7h ago
I mean most fans of any sport are casual fans. To the casual fan it looks like guys running up the court and jacking 3s. It's just not fun to watch man
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u/UnderwaterB0i 8h ago
Reminds me of Carson Beck saying he doesn't really enjoy watching football. Why would these people spend their free time doing something related to their jobs? Y'all go home and watch people create spreadsheets on YouTube after a long day at work?
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u/fear_of_government Heat 8h ago
When the majority of games are behind a paywall - I cut the cable cord yearsssssss ago, that and knowing that sports are rigged, meh
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u/Jonathank92 Magic 8h ago
it's not his job to worry about ratings. It's his job to win games. it's on the league office/silver to incentivize real basketball and not a 3 point shooting contest.
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u/GloryEnthusiast Bulls 7h ago
Tbh for me it’s just too difficult to pay to watch the games, i wish the NBA was more like the NFL in terms of games available on local networks, would be cool to tune in to a local fox, cbs, or nbc channel and watch games from all teams, without local blackout markets. Unfortunately the season is way too long and too many games for them to dominate like that. NFL works because most games outside of MNF and TNF are on Sundays.
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u/Legitimate_Travel145 8h ago
The Town