[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 1d 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/creedbratton603 Celtics 1d ago

Same exact thing that happened to baseball. They are willing to “try everything to grow the game” as long as that everything doesn’t cut into short term profits. The internet age was supposed to make everything more accessible and it’s done the opposite. Everything is behind a paywall. I’ll continue to shout this until I’m blue in the face you should be able to watch your local sports teams for free with a damn antenna if you please. Our tax payer money pays for for the team and like ticket and vendor prices aren’t bad enough, to turn around a lock these games behind a million different streaming services is moronic. You reap what you sow

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u/nicehouseenjoyer 1d ago

The last CBA killed any hope of serious schedule, broadcasting or in-game reform and they cynically added a fake cup competition instead to just be able to package a subset of regular season games into a new streaming rights package. You are right about them eating their seed corn, I wouldn't even mind paying a decent number for a good League Pass package, I already do so for Fubo to get EPL games and Apple TV to get MLS games, I just don't want to pay for the four(!) different services I would need to watch all games in Canada, and then also have to sit through hours of ads and a last two minutes that takes thirty minutes to play.

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u/nawksnai Raptors 1d ago

It’s funny, because I’m Canadian and live in Australia, and I swear League Pass in Australia is EXACTLY what it should be.

I pay $180 AUD for the year, and I can watch any game, any team. There’s no weird rules or complications. It’s simple.

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u/HoyaDestroya33 Knicks 1d ago

League Pass is an amazing product outside of USA. No blackouts or whatever. In India, League Pass is like $20 for the whole year.

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u/nicehouseenjoyer 1d ago

It sucks in Canada too.

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u/HoyaDestroya33 Knicks 1d ago

League Pass basically sucks in countries where there are NBA teams 😆

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u/nawksnai Raptors 1d ago

The fact that this is true is so ridiculous.

I wonder if international viewership is an all-time high? 😂

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u/HoyaDestroya33 Knicks 1d ago

I have always bought League Pass as it's a good product for me. For other countries, the pricing would probably stop people from purchasing it but NBA has regional pricing so that's nice.

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u/nawksnai Raptors 1d ago

For me, League Pass is roughly $120 USD per year for me in Australia. That’s $10 USD per month.

Not sure what prices are for LP and other streaming services in the US, but LP works out cheaper than most streaming services, and much cheaper than Netflix Australia(and in Canada).

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u/reallytierd2024 1d ago

I tried paying for league pass and still couldn’t watch the team that plays 100 miles down the road. NBA TV sucks too. It’s broadcast like a national cable network, yet will blackout every game with in 300 miles of you even if it’s a sell out. It’s pretty sad that people in Colorado can’t even watch the Denver nuggets on Tv. They have to get a bootleg streaming service just to watch their home town team. The NBA is good at being their own worst enemy, it’s like they are afraid of success!

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u/thatguykeith 1d ago

I’m going to VPN myself to India lol

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u/HoyaDestroya33 Knicks 1d ago

I tried that but I cannot pay with my non India issued credit card lol

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u/thatguykeith 1d ago

This is going to be more complicated than I thought.

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u/TurkishDonkeyKong 1d ago

It's also nice if you don't live in your teams market. Unfortunately alabama counts as three other team markets (pelicans, grizzlies, and hawks). I live 7 hours from Memphis

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u/realisticroll2024 1d ago

I paid 41 dollars for the league pass for the whole year in Pakistan

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u/WhatMeatCatSpokeOf Spurs 1d ago

Moved out of the US and got League Pass and it’s been great. If it worked like this, I would have had it the whole time, but instead was just finding whatever streams I could. Went back the US to visit and unskippsble ads started playing throughout the games. American companies treat Americans like shit.

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u/cancercureall Supersonics 1d ago

You're saying "get a vpn" aren't you?

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u/HoyaDestroya33 Knicks 1d ago

You can't, i tried thats why I know the price lol. I tried using my CC issued outside of India and it doesn't accept.

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u/cancercureall Supersonics 1d ago

I'd be willing to bet there's a workaround. Probably not going to make the effort... buuuut... maybe

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u/HoyaDestroya33 Knicks 1d ago

Nah im good. Dont wanna risk it being unusable. Im paying for around $130 US in Singapore and I get to watch all games, ad free with no black out. That's less than $10 a month.

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u/cancercureall Supersonics 1d ago

I don't give a shit about the price. I just want to be able to watch all the games in one place.

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u/HoyaDestroya33 Knicks 1d ago

Well I suggest living in another country not named USA nor Canada lol. We got it good. League Pass is amazing for us

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u/Aless_Motta New Jersey Nets 23h ago

Thats the point, american sports are cheap to watch outside the usa because they dont really have a lot of people that would spend money to watch it, and they dont have a million regulations/financial obligations to some entities or whatever.. I used to get nfl games for "free" with my directv subscription in Venezuela, no extra pay or nothing, redzone included.

This also happens in the uk with the premie league, its Hard and expensive to watch locally, while in south América you get all games if you have a cable sub and all games are on streaming; most sports fuck the local market and try to use cheap tactics to grow internationally until it gets big enough to create a proper paid market outside the country.

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u/Apprehensive-Use-981 23h ago

Yeah I pay 10 euro a month in Spain to watch literally every game 😬. I wonder if a VPN would help folks? But even that is annoying as hell to have to secure on top of the subscription. Like why does it have to be so hard just to engage with the product?

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u/HoyaDestroya33 Knicks 23h ago

Cause NBA have to please different stakeholders.

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u/Apprehensive-Use-981 20h ago

True, but then to whine about decreased viewership when you make people jump through hoops to buy your thing is wild.

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u/CliplessWingtips 1d ago

Deep down I think Americans know how things should be, but there's this strange, loud population simping for rich people.

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u/roykentjr 1d ago edited 1d ago

during the golden age of captalism (end of wwii-1970ish), you could make the jump from working class to very well off by being good at business or something. now, everyone still has the idea in their head that their good fortune is right around the corner so they will vote with their idealized future self- interest in mind. but in reality, we have the .01%, the working class milliionaires, the very working class, and homeless.

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u/Pure_Context_2741 18h ago

I think a big part of the issue is that many people see things like regulation as restrictions on themselves rather than what it is, a counter-balance to corporate greed. A HUGE part of why there was so much social mobility in the “golden age of capitalism” Is because of the New Deal policies put in place by FDR after the Great Depression. Policies that created opportunities and protections for workers, that promoted strong unions, and that helped diminish monopolies and their influence. We’ve been pushing in the opposite direction for quite a while now and it’s taken extreme actions like shooting a healthcare CEO in broad daylight to bring attention to the clearly broken systems currently in place in our country.

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u/CliplessWingtips 1d ago

Add a little "Trickle Down Reaganomics" spice in there, and I am 100% in agreement with you.

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u/Raangz Thunder 16h ago

the golden age of capitalism is def now. ask the capitalist.

i saw a book about silent films moving from working class films to fantasy,ala temporary embarrassed millionaires. we have never really recovered. the best trick the devil ever pulled, was that he convinced us he didn't exist, type of deal. americans are just fucked in terms of class consciousness. and the owning class absolutely thinks and engages in the struggle, every second of the day.

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u/roykentjr 6h ago edited 6h ago

i mean economists labeled that period, the post-wwii expansion, as the golden age of capitalism. i wasn't being metaphoric. it was because of the economic boom, low unemployment, and social mobility. if you mean nowadays it is all or nothing, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, i agree. but back in the day, everyone had a shot at "the american dream" even if you grew up poor because of the guardrails and safety nets in society. i suppose this is all with an asterisk of white men benefiting the most or still having the least obstacles towards that. but minorities saw progress here as well. and again, we are seeing regression under the dictator we did have and will also soon have again now in that aspect also. lord help us

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u/Warmachine_10 1d ago

Not here mate, it’s:

This $20 subscription service gets 20 games, this $35 subscription service gets 15 games, this $7 subscription service gets the most important game of the season. And so on.

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u/bucketGetter89 1d ago

Yep same in nz too. It’s somewhat pricey but once you pay, you can access any and every game without limitation. I had no idea that wasn’t the case for others

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u/nawksnai Raptors 1d ago

I knew, but it has gotten worse over the last few years, it seems. Maybe since the most recent TV deal?