We have been lucky enough to have some of the best players in basketball, play all in the same decade. But recently our favorite stars have been aging.
‘The NBA has had a major viewership problem over the last few years. The viewership is down 25% recently and 50% in the previous decade. There’s obviously a problem in the league including how the game is played to the marketing and style the NBA has now. The NBA is failing and there are many reasons why I think it is.
My first problem with the NBA is that the best games are locked behind paywalls or subscriptions on too many services. For example, the NBA league pass is $14.99 a month for the basic membership but $24.99 for the premium.
Most people aren’t gonna pay for this service, and the NBA locks big matchups like Lakers vs Mavericks recently or Cavs vs Thunder behind these paywalls.
This just makes it harder to watch your favorite teams especially if you’re already paying for the NFL and MLB subscriptions. The NBA should make their games easier to watch instead of using blackouts to lock games you want to watch but can’t.
My second reason why the NBA is not doing well is because of the style of the league. If you follow basketball every year you see a post about the retro uniforms from the 90s-2000s era and how great they used to be. But recently these uniforms have become a gimmick to sell more jerseys and get social media traction. Since the deal with Nike, the NBA’s jerseys have been bland and minimalistic, especially with the city jerseys. This means that Nike is the lead designer for all of the NBA merchandise and jerseys. The NBA makes new City jerseys for every team every year representing the place those teams are located in.
Nike pushes their designers to “pump and dump” a new jersey for 32 teams every year, and they always come out the same, and there’s always a complaint about more than half the jerseys that come out. Since the NBA just signed an extension to be with Nike for the next 12 years, Nike should cancel the city jerseys and let the designers make more colorful and detailed jerseys–ditch the minimalism go off of the classics, and make a modern classic.
My final reason why the NBA is failing is the oversaturation of the 3-point shot and the idea of positionless basketball. The 3-point shot has been becoming very oversaturated.
You know it’s bad when centers are taking eight 3-point attempts per game. Players like Anthony Edwards have been having statistically excellent seasons but as a viewer, it is very boring to watch.
Anthony Edwards last year took 532 3-point attempts for that whole season. Currently, with 22 games to go, he has taken 451+ and we are not even done with the season yet. Edwards was a lot more exciting to watch last year compared to this year when he took fewer 3-point shots and drove in the Paint more.
But so many players have had to switch to taking more threes and coaches do this because it works. They might not think it is right or entertaining but constantly doing the three-point shot has proven to work. I have no idea how they could devalue the 3 ball but there are many ways to tackle it.
