Bad News For The Haters: The TV Ratings From The NBA's Opening Week Were The Highest In 15 Years And Up 60% Over Last Year

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Last season, it felt like you couldn't go a day without hearing about the NBA's TV ratings. Much of the discourse around that topic was the same tired bullshit that was just regurgitated over and over and over again, despite none of it actually being true. How many times were you told the NBA's product was awful and nobody was watching because all they do it chuck up 3PAs? That the way the game is being played in 2025 is resulting in a drop in viewers/ratings etc? That it was boring and not worth watching?

I'll answer for you, it's all you heard. In fact, I basically made it my personal mission to help explain how far from reality that actually was. Every night in the NBA is fun. Teams actually don't all play the same way, you just actually have to ya know, watch the games to see and understand that. Three-point shooting was in fact not destroying the league, despite how much crying there was about how the Celtics ruined the sport and that the NBA needed to change the rules/court in order to get people to watch again.

How do we know this? If that's how you truly felt last year, well then how do you explain this?

Wait a damn minute. Last time I checked, NBA teams across the league are still taking a shit ton of 3PA. In fact, 10 different teams are currently averaging at least 40 3PA to start the year, and a few (OKC, MEM) are right behind at 39.6. Last year, that number was 4 total teams. So, it would appear that the whole stance of "3pt shooting volume is ruining the NBA and is why people aren't watching" angle doesn't exactly hold up now does it?

As it turns out, when a league also puts its games on network TV channels and not solely on cable/regional sports networks, more people watch and the ratings are better??

This is why all that bullshit last year felt like clear gaslighting. It was as if people for some reason refused to use common sense when discussing this topic. With the majority of their games on cable (ESPN/TNT/NBATV/regional networks) and the increased use of illegal streaming, no shit the NBA's ratings were going to suffer based on how those metrics are recorded and how people watch games. Especially at a time when cable and all that stuff is expensive as hell.

That's why the weird attempt to try and make this connection between the product and the ratings made no sense to anyone who was actually watching on a nightly basis. The product was awesome! That's what matters! It's similar to the way that just because the NFL ratings are insane every weekend, it doesn't mean that every single football game you watch is a good product. Far from it. I'd say half of the discourse after every football Sunday is how many teams and games were unwatchable products, but the sport has us all by the balls which means the ratings will always be insane.

For whatever reason, that same logic never seemed to be applied to the NBA and its product.

In reality, making the games more accessible to a wider audience has led to more viewers. Who could have possibly seen that coming?! Almost like that's exactly why Adam Silver and the league made this change. And while I admit all the flipping between apps is a gigantic pain in my dick, eventually I'll get used to it just like everything else that changes when it comes to technology. 

Now to be fair, one thing to monitor as the season goes on is how much of this was just nostalgia at play and curiosity from fans of how NBA on NBC and Amazon Prime would handle their NBA coverage. I think it's fair to suggest things were always going to look good initially, because its new. The good news? Both NBC and Amazon have been crushing their coverage. If anything, it's giving people more of a reason to watch as the season goes on, so it wouldn't surprise me if there isn't a massive drop off once we get to say, Thanksgiving. 

The games are awesome. The product has never been better, and now as fans we have real options when it comes to TV coverage. You add all that up, and it's no surprise to see all that nonsense about the ratings last year was just that. Nonsense.