With ratings continuing to fall as the season comes to an end, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said that the league will not bring back social justice slogans on the court or players’ jerseys next season.
“My sense is there’ll be somewhat a return to normalcy, that those messages will largely be left to be delivered off the floor,” Silver said, adding, “and I understand those people who are saying, ‘I’m on your side, but I want to watch a basketball game.’”
The NBA apparently decided that its over-the-top political messaging during games was only fit for its gimmicky season that restarted in an Orlando bubble. It’s clear that money played into the decision: There was a real possibility that players weren’t going to agree to restart the coronavirus-paused 2019-20 season without the league’s public social justice displays.
Game 3 of the NBA Finals was the lowest-rated finals game on record, and it broke the record set by Game 2 two days prior. Before that? Game 1 of the same series.
The ratings conversation is a complicated one, given the abnormal circumstances brought on by coronavirus delays. The NBA playoffs are airing in what is typically its offseason. But attempts to disregard politics entirely, as Chris Haynes at Yahoo Sports did, ignores the wealth of evidence we already had of the effects of politics on ratings before the pandemic.
The partisan gap between Republicans and Democrats following the NBA is greater than in any other sport. 39% of sports fans said they were watching fewer NBA games in a Harris Poll. When asked, 38% said the league was too political, and 19% blamed the league’s capitulation to China (respondents could select more than one answer). 57% of Republicans and 22% of Democrats said the league was too political.
The NBA was falling well before the pandemic. The 2018-19 season saw its playoff ratings drop double digits over the year before. Since the 2011-12 season, the NBA has lost 45% of its prime-time viewership. In a wonderful breakdown at the Athletic, Ethan Strauss notes that the league’s most precipitous drop in that eight-year slide came at the start of this season, shortly after the NBA’s China controversy.
Clearly, the commissioner of the league seems to understand that politics have played a role. Whether the NBA was trying to capitalize on the Black Lives Matter movement to goose its already failing ratings or wanted to make sure it could finish its season, it’s clear the league’s political stance has been bad for ratings. However, whether the players and coaches allow for a course correction is anyone’s guess.
