[Rankin] ... Kevin Durant continuing to address #NBA viewership being down. "I take this serious. I'm locked in as to why people don't want to watch us play."

https://x.com/DuaneRankin/status/1872176949801504956?t=sOlhzun3lYo5ImePn8Xpwg&s=19

6.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

8.7k

u/jldtsu Mavericks 3d ago

too expensive and convoluted to watch games for the average consumer. I pay a 17 dollar subscription to watch one team and 100% of the games aren't even available on it. The fact that I'm willing to pay that puts me in a small minority. Majority of people would scoff at it.

1.1k

u/2uneek [CLE] Mark Price 3d ago

yep exactly, i had this conversation with my family yesterday when i was visiting.. basically, its a netflix subscriptions cost to watch a single team play and it might get blacked out if your team plays nationally. Nobody is paying $17-20/mo to watch something they have mid interest in... you're never acquiring the low-mid interest fans with this model, just us junkies who are gonna watch one way or another.

I really think if the product was more accessible, it would be doing fine.. but its outpriced and inconvenienced itself to a point, the average person is always going to pass for something else.

296

u/Neemzeh Timberwolves 2d ago

The NBA has put itself into a box though, with player salaries, salary cap, expenses, etc. They basically have to use their existing models or the networks wont pay them as much. If they don't pay as much, they'll probably lose revenue. IDK tho, I'm sure someone with an economic background can explain more accessibility vs. networks paying and whether one will make more than the other. I'd imagine the NBA has crunched these numbers and still think its better for them financially to do it this way, viewership be damned.

735

u/Skunk_Gunk [CLE] LeBron James 2d ago

The biggest thing that leagues don’t account for when going this route is that they are losing the next generation of fans by doing this. People rarely start to follow teams/leagues unless they grow up with it. The league needs to think about the next 20 years just not the next quarter, could say this about 90% of companies though to be fair.

52

u/KevinDLasagna Timberwolves 2d ago

Really wouldn’t surprise me at all if soccer become more popular in the U.S. over the next 15-20 years. It’s becoming more and more popular every year and the nba is the opposite. And I’m talking premier league/champions league and international not MLS.

32

u/ResidentRunner1 Pistons 2d ago

MLB might grow again too, I'm optimistic about the future of baseball

-4

u/_Puff_Puff_Pass 2d ago

Baseball doesn’t know how to market its stars. Or outright refuses. Ask the average person who Ohtani is. They have the same problem, if you don’t play baseball then you don’t watch and they are making it harder to watch a game without jumping through hoops.

9

u/ansu_fatismo23 Rockets 2d ago

Actually it’s the opposite ohtani is extremely recognizable. My mum and dad who don’t watch any baseball know who ohtani is and even watched the world series with me to see how he does. i’m not from the US btw so the fact people know about ohtani is huge

-2

u/_Puff_Puff_Pass 2d ago

The viewership and endorsement numbers say otherwise. If you’re in an Asian country, makes sense though.

3

u/ansu_fatismo23 Rockets 2d ago

I’m actually from a latin american country which doesn’t watch baseball much, so the fact that he gets recognized here is a good sign about the improvements on marketing by baseball