for nearly two decades I've been a passionate NBA super fan following every season without fail all the way to the hoop scoop to the hoop with a ball Point 71 and 72 basketball is more than just a sport for me it's a way of life and honestly I can't imagine a world without Steph Curry draining impossible threes LeBron James crying to the refs or watching freakishly athletic players defy gravity oh he just evaporated the king's defense lately however there's been a lot of Buzz about the NBA losing its grip in the world of entertainment LeBron
is divisive he makes the game unattractive NBA Finals numbers down massively ladies and gentlemen the truth is viewership is declining fans are tuning out and honestly the numbers don't lie ratings have dropped a staggering 48% since 2012 and 28% just this year on ESPN alone meanwhile other sports leagues are breaking records this is a troubling Trend and in today's video I'll share my own perspective as a super fan along with insights from experts and fans around the world to explore the big question why is the NBA dying like how much leag pass cost like leag
pass and you don't even get all the games you don't even get the games in your own City yeah you don't get the Laker game yeah onor technical foul LCA he he waved him off appears that way and somebody else or or is it aoka [Applause] out and Westbrook sneaks inside seven for Westbrook technical f on westbr have you ever watched a game where an NBA player just gives another a simple glare and boom they're slapped with a technical foul or how about a player clapping in frustration only to get hit with a tech oh
yeah really UPS himself call for technical it's crazy to think but stuff like this is actually happening in the NBA right now turn around jumper foul Mor and John's got to watch his reaction he already is sitting on One technical foul just got I get it this is basketball not WWE but the NBA and its referees have gotten so soft that even the slightest hints of drama get shut down with a whistle and honestly this is just one of the reasons viewership is dropping because here's the thing drama sells pretty play a 9 to one
run Minnesota oh come on man no no way no way take the UFC for example when Conor McGregor was in his prime and gearing up to fight Floyd Mayweather the drama was off the charts I mean those press conferences alone were pulling in more views than some NBA finals games don't believe me check this out the Toronto president conference for Mayweather versus McGregor racked up 8.4 million views on YouTube alone now compare that to the 2020 NBA bubble finals which averaged just 7.4 million viewers That's The Power of drama and yet the NBA wants no
part of it for example Giannis got a technical here for simply looking at Al Horford after a dunk Jason Tatum got hit with one here for just hanging on the rim after making a big play and then here's joic the League's best player getting ejected over well basically nothing this be technical oh they threw yic out of the game I get that the NBA wants to avoid another malice in the palace incident but this complete lack of drama and technical fouls at every corner is turning fans away Bulls fans booing the refs for ejecting yit
shows how bad of a call it is my dad took my 99-year-old nephew to his first basketball game and his favorite player got ejected early in the third for nothing this is absolutely disgusting and this one which perfectly sums up the 2025 season ref's got more highlights than anybody that got drafted this year that's outrageous what happened tonight this is completely BS this is shame officials who are too quick to blow their whistles eject players or change the outcome of games while eliminating any possible drama are just one of the many reasons NBA viewership is
in a free fall we've got breaking news LeBron is a Laker breaking news Kevin Durant is headed to Phoenix Portland is sending Daman Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks Giannis and Dame that is a scary thought piggybacking on my earlier point about the lack of drama another reason NBA viewership is dropping is the complete lack of heated rivalries the other thing is the rivalries with the NBA I'm not going to hold you I want that I miss that I liked it when people didn't like each other and was really trying to go at each other in
the UFC for example we want to see Jon Jones fight Tom Aspen not watch them train together and be [Music] buddies the reality is NBA players switch teams faster than a game of hot potato these days as a result there aren't many rivalries anymore and rivalries bring drama and as I mentioned earlier drama sells which is another area the NBA is lacking right now maybe that's just maybe the little toxic side of me you feel me I just like controver not just individual players but like doesn't even feel like there's team rivalries anymore like a
Lakers Celtics game it's like whatever now you know Kevin Durant for example he's one of the greatest players of the last decade but how can home fans get emotionally invested when he leaves his team every couple of years then there's LeBron James while many of the younger generation consider him the goat he's notorious for jumping ship whenever the going gets tough by constantly avoiding long-term battles he's also avoided building the kind of rivalries that fans crave and now according to what I heard recently he's reportedly interested in team up with golden state and joining arguably
his biggest rival Steph Curry all because his Lakers experiment has turned into a complete disaster where's the Loyalty where's the drama then like I said whenever young players try to create rivalries like Jaylen green and Kade cting ham the NBA is quick to blow the whistle and put out the fire immediately Now find J GRE oh my goodness we did it we did it as one fan put it the fact they gave a tech for that summarizes everything wrong with today's soft NBA God forbid somebody show some emotion so the other day I came home
exhausted and just wanted to relax by watching my favorite team play basketball I fire up my league pass and then bam I get hit with this yeah for some reason the NBA blocks out home games for everyone on their League Pass App making it ridiculously hard for fans to watch their favorite team so you got to buy cable for your own teams and then you got to buy league pass to get the league pass stuff so what ends up happening is is the distribution of games now and they're harder to find look at this Reddit
post from 2 years ago that really sums things up I have TNT as well as league pass but it won't let me watch the Bucks Warriors game on TNT due to a regional blackout what the am I supposed to do why the does the NBA make it so hard to watch the product to which someone replied it's really funny to me I live in Vegas but I can't watch the Clippers or Kings if I move to a different zip code 10 minutes east I also cannot watch the Lakers on top of the Clippers and Kinks
they just make up the truth is many many NBA fans have a specific team they love to watch usually their home team but the NBA makes it so frustrating to follow them often times you don't know if the game is going to play on League Pass TNT ESPN or some other random Channel with all this hassle it's so much easier to just tune into something else especially in a world overflowing with entertainment options this is yet another reason why NBA viewership keeps dropping you know what I mean words was thrown out there that shouldn't be
thrown out there between you know I mean two men and so that kind of just drew drew the line for me and I'm one of those once you on one side bro you staying there you might be wondering why I included that clip of Paul George on his podcast where he shares why he's no longer a fan of Chris Paul in a video titled why the NBA is dying well let me explain or better yet let this man explain so p c p I wanted to pull this up before I say it this season 10
games played 16 podcast episodes salary 49 million are you getting paid for the podcast or you getting paid to play how you got more podcast episodes than games played [ __ ] story mode featuring Jamal Crawford the Drew holiday episode season 3 premiere Paul George has been dropping podcast after podcast on his podcast P Channel and while they're great episodes they highlight a trend among NBA players that they don't seem to care about the league anymore to them the NBA feels like a stepping stone or a paycheck and you know what the fans can feel
that Vibe I don't like the NBA why not the NBA don't give a anyway when it comes to Paul George specifically just listen to what this one Philly fan had to say uh I just slept until 5:00 p.m. and I woke up and looked at my phone and I see a Paul George podcast featuring Reggie Jackson the day after Paul George drops two points and leaves the game with another leg injury it wouldn't be fair to put all the blame on Paul George because this is a much bigger League wide Trend take Zion Williamson for
example one of the most hyped prospects in recent NBA history instead of focusing on the game he seems to more about food than basketball is it hard to diet at your age uh jez be honest since it's you I'll be real uh there are times when I will say that man that sh hard it's it's hard man like 20 22 got a lot of money all it feel like all the money in the world man then there's Ben Simmons once hailed as the next LeBron James he's earning tens of millions of dollars but still hasn't
bothered to develop a jump shot I mean in this clip he misses practically every mid-range jumper and let's not forget the countless other players who just show up to play but don't seem to care whether they win or lose in the NBA you lose you still getting money and I know for sure like after you lose you're like damn I lost you be hurt look at your bank account $35 million college you really lose you're done that's it I know this doesn't apply to every player some genuinely care about winning and that's the reason why
fans love them but the harsh truth is that the majority of players even some Superstars don't seem to show that passion and if they don't care why should viewers bother tuning in in the words of the great Steph Curry we can tell Donald Trump night night I'm not here to dive into politics but another big reason the NBA is losing viewership is its polarizing stance on political issues me and my friends call each other that all the time I'm not his friend though don't don't I don't want to see that on the Note he's not
my friend again I'm not picking sides or saying which side is better but the reality is when the NBA chooses one side of the political spectrum they alienate the other side of their viewers if there's a poll I'd be interested in is the following what percentage of MLB players give to the left and the right what percentage of NHL players give to the left and the right NBA and NFL which one do you think is going to be M majority of the money being given to the left NBA 100% and it won't even be close
damn lost a fan I remember why I don't watch the NBA anymore and this is the main reason I don't watch the NBA anymore now I'm not saying it's wrong for NBA players to speak out about the state of the country or share their opinions on who they prefer in the white house but based on what I've seen it's clearly bad for business you don't lose all the viewers from the opposing political side but you definitely lose a chunk of them and when you combine that with the lack of drama overly abusive referees the difficulty
of watching games and players who don't seem to care about winning you end up with the perfect storm for plummeting viewership oh and I haven't even touched on the three-point shooting yet which has made some games almost unbearable to watch the three-point shot was revolutionary when Steph Curry came out of nowhere hitting impossible shots from half court it was exciting it was fresh but now when the three shot has become a cold calculated algorithm like what the Celtics are doing right now it loses its magic entertainment is just too easy to find these days Netflix
YouTube Amazon Prime Tik Tok UFC you name it sure the NBA just signed a massive New Deal and made more money than ever but that doesn't change change the fact that viewership is falling if the league wants to bounce back and dominate the entertainment world again they need to seriously rethink many aspects of their business not that I'll ever stop watching though as a super fan I can't get enough of the NBA I mean did y all catch the game where Jordan P took down Nicola yic in a showdown absolutely no one saw coming on
a night when joic dropped a career-high 56 points yeah Jordan pool straight up turn into Steph Curry that night and completely took over against the best player in the world and if you're wondering what I'm talking about don't worry because I've got the whole story for you right over here
