[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

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u/jldtsu Mavericks 2d 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.

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u/2uneek [CLE] Mark Price 2d 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.

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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.

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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.

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u/Brokengan 2d ago

You are 100. Right. Just like other said upstairs, we are junkies, we already know the teams and pay to watch. How about a 10yo, 12yo? They probably watch youtube shorts about nba but never watch a game.

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u/JustADutchRudder Timberwolves 2d ago

Last 3 years I've been getting my nephew into the Wolves. Going to games, getting him cards to learn the team and all that. His biggest complaint is that he never gets to watch games since his parents don't have cable, just rabbit ears and Netflix. He's only 13, so I don't wanna show him illegal streams since they always have porn pop ups or things he'd click and ruin his mom's computer. So he watches YouTube clips.

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u/TheDustyRob 2d ago edited 2d ago

This is why I've never believed that the majority of fans have switched to pirate streams despite reddits insistence otherwise. No half decent parent is gonna sit down with their kids and stream from a site where all of the ads are about horny milfs and anime titties.

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u/_Puff_Puff_Pass 2d ago

Been pirating sports for years. Have never seen an anime titty, porn or horny milf ads. What streams are you using?! 😂

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u/2ABB Vancouver Grizzlies 2d ago

I agree that a decent Adblock will avoid all the images.

However even when you’re blocking the ads, there are still chatrooms that show up next to the stream with some unhinged slur spammers.

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u/jda404 NBA 2d ago

However even when you’re blocking the ads, there are still chatrooms that show up next to the stream with some unhinged slur spammers.

That's fair. I plug my laptop into my TV and watch the streams at full screen, for one watching it at full screen is way better of a viewing experience, but also when it's full screen you can't see the annoying chat going on, at least for the stream sites I use to watch sports.

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u/2ABB Vancouver Grizzlies 2d ago

Yeah if it’s full screen you don’t see it. But when you first open the page you can, or if there’s an issue with it and you need to refresh etc.

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u/Lunien 2d ago

You can block the chat elements too, it's one or two more steps, but it gives you basically the best experience (no ads, no chat)

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u/2ABB Vancouver Grizzlies 2d ago

I’ve blocked the chat elements on some sites at times but after a few weeks they reappear

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u/Lunien 2d ago

What is your block script for the element?

I've done "www.youtube.com###chat" and you could probably do "www.twitch.tv/embed/XXXXX/$subdocument" (or /chat instead of $subdocument) where XXX is the channel the chat is connected to.

I also have "www.youtube.com###panels-full-bleed-container" but I forget why lol

If not yeah sometimes it's a bit "whack-a-mole" where they change things up and you just gotta update it.

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