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  • #61
    slaw wrote: View Post

    And that's not at all an argument I am making..... My point has always been that the NBA's ratings are declining and that they should be (and are) concerned about that cause those ratings are important for revenue for the league and that should be addressing issues as to why the ratings are so low and, no, not all of them are beyond their control.
    Until they run out of billionaires, hedge funds, ex-athletes and other assorted ego-centric characters who are willing to pay increasing amounts for franchises... then the NBA thinks they are doing just fine. And it's very hard to argue against that if you use franchise valuation as an un-biased measuring stick.

    But even so, it's not like they give jack-sh*t about TV ratings altogether - that would be insanity. Of course they are always concerned, like any company should be with their #1 customer. I mean, they were forced to experiment with a new schedule in 2020 and realized that they simply could not go head-to-head with the NFL in the summer and have been trying to get back to the normal schedule as quick as possible. They forced the players back after 1 month to play on Christmas Day and a compressed schedule because of revenue implications. But despite all the negatives you keep mentioning.... franchise valuations keep going up. How do you explain that?

    What type of issues are you talking about that the league can and should be addressing, within their control, to pump up US ratings?

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    • #62
      The NFL will be airing two games on Christmas this year. So I'm sure the NBA is going to love that.

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      • #63
        It's all connected:

        1. Traditional cable TV has been dying a slow death for years, so ratings on that format have been plummeting across the board, not just sports. It's a societal change worldwide; if you're under 50, very rarely you'll make time to sit in front of the tv, including commercials, at the time the network decides your program will air, like it used to be. There's too many distractions now, people want to watch what they want on their own schedule.

        2. Sports however, are the last bastion of cable, so advertisers that still want to use traditional media flock to professional sports, as everything else is tanking at a higher rate (Keon's point above).

        3. #1 and #2 explain why U.S. tv rates are going down but TV ad deals are paradoxically going up. Neither imo is related to the health of the NBA as a product. The league is a content producer, not a content deliverer. It's been successfully going global for some time now, and engagement is at all time high, not only through games, but also through darn things like RR, tweeter, reddit etc keeping us here geeking out and talking about niche things that people go deep into these days, long before and long after the actual event. If you're a content producer, and you're keeping your crowd at that level of engagement, you're winning. It's the delivery that's being "disrupted" by technology and generational changes, not the product.

        4. What the NBA has to do is continue to manage how its content is delivered in order to maximize its value. Right now cable is still a big part of it, but that will continue to gradually die off. So the league needs to have a plan to either deliver its own product in a quality way through global memberships (like Netflix and Disney do on the shows they produce), or find a partner that can do it, ideally without the geoblocking (e.g.youtubers with their channels). That's how people want consume their entertainment these days: Not geoblocked, not forced fed a specific time you gotta watch, and able to interact with other geeks who share your niche interest.

        5. Right now the NBA has this product, it's the "League Pass". It is purposely shitty though, full of geographic barriers (blackouts) and limited functionality, precisely because it's in direct competition with cable (which the league still draws a lot of $ from)

        6. When cable is finally dead for good though (which could be a long time), people won't be slave to the $89/mth bloated cable package they have so they can PVR the odd show/team they watch. You'll get a centralized high-end app/online experience, where you can watch the game in 4K at the time you want from anywhere in the world, and on the same interface, if you wish, be able talk to other fans (like we do here), participate in polls/contests, buy merchandise and witness high quality unobtrusive ads (some with the athletes you like). Membership revenue from this is charged directly by the nba without middlemen.

        7. Global teams outside the US (which now it's only the Raptors but the nba has explored others), won't have to contend with players wondering if their brand is affected when they play here because of the atypical exposure/market. The whole thing from top to bottom gets more streamlined and uniform with a more even product worldwide.

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        • #64
          ^ ya why deal with a middle man (tv)? If these tv channels can pay nba billions and make a profit why doesnt nba just do it themselves?

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          • #65
            Yuri Gagarin wrote: View Post
            ^ ya why deal with a middle man (tv)? If these tv channels can pay nba billions and make a profit why doesnt nba just do it themselves?
            Yeah that's the idea, though granted, it's easier said than done. Traditional tv had huge sway in the 50's & 60's when the league was in its infancy, and it helped make basketball a national sport (along with football) in the states. Hard to move away from that overnight.

            That said, times have changed quite a bit on that front, content is more important than delivery format, and the nba makes the content here. If they could get global direct advertisement money comparable to what the networks get, while also charging a monthly membership to viewers (plus live game tickets and merchandise sales), they'd be next level.

            Cable Tv/advertisers on it are an ingrained multibillion dollar industry though. It'd take a long time for them to wean themselves off, if that's even what they want.

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            • #66
              Yuri Gagarin wrote: View Post
              ^ ya why deal with a middle man (tv)? If these tv channels can pay nba billions and make a profit why doesnt nba just do it themselves?
              In the short term because its got a huge fixed infrastructure cost involved with cutting out the middle man. Also because they are still learning how to best optimize things like twitter and social media in general.

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              • #67
                NBA TV exists. Still not profitable.
                Only one thing matters: We The Champs.

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                • #68
                  MixxAOR wrote: View Post
                  NBA TV exists. Still not profitable.
                  MLB.tv has done a pretty good job with their streaming product.

                  https://www.mlb.com/press-release/pr...eaming-numbers

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    inthepaint wrote: View Post

                    Yeah that's the idea, though granted, it's easier said than done. Traditional tv had huge sway in the 50's & 60's when the league was in its infancy, and it helped make basketball a national sport (along with football) in the states. Hard to move away from that overnight.

                    That said, times have changed quite a bit on that front, content is more important than delivery format, and the nba makes the content here. If they could get global direct advertisement money comparable to what the networks get, while also charging a monthly membership to viewers (plus live game tickets and merchandise sales), they'd be next level.

                    Cable Tv/advertisers on it are an ingrained multibillion dollar industry though. It'd take a long time for them to wean themselves off, if that's even what they want.
                    It's a tricky business problem. It's a like a manufacturer selling direct-to-consumer and also selling to their distributors, who buy in huge volumes. Distributors don't like that because they are competing with the manufacturer who can always undercut them on price and provide other features. If you are huge, powerful and have insatiable demand like Apple, you can have your own Apple store and also sell phones through Walmart & Rogers. At the same time, you still want to keep your distribution network incentivized and motivated, because your own captive distribution network can only cover so much of the market.

                    The technology is also not to the point where it comes built-in to smart TVs, like Youtube or Netflix is now, and transportable across all devices. People just want to switch their brains off, press a button and have this stuff already setup for them. Maybe all live sports eventually ends up on YouTube, Netflix or Amazon Prime. That could be where we are headed.

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                    • #70
                      MixxAOR wrote: View Post
                      NBA TV exists. Still not profitable.
                      Yeah but that's still cable tv. It's buried in a channel package and it only shows a fraction of the games.

                      In the end though, this is one of those "first world problems". Stuff you talk about in the dog days of summer when there are no games and no player movement. Main point is NBA basketball is as popular as ever, and tv ratings go up and down cuz a bunch of other complex and often unrelated reasons. Blockbuster didn't go out of business because people stopped liking movies.

                      I personally still have my good ol' shaw cable box, and got the league pass too (Raptors only), so I can catch the game when I'm travelling. BTW I found out a good way to buy the league pass is when you're physically overseas. I was away one time, got the "1-team" pass, and it was like $7 canadian monthly or something for all the Raptors games. So I kept it when I came back home and still have it for that price. It still has the "blackouts" at the time TSN/SN is broadcasting, but it's still handy.

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                      • #71
                        Eastern Conference Power Rankings:

                        1) Nets
                        2) Bucks
                        3) Hawks
                        4) 76ers
                        5) Heat
                        6) Knicks
                        7) Celtics
                        8) Bulls
                        9) Raptors
                        10) Wizards
                        11) Pacers
                        12) Hornets
                        13) Cavaliers
                        14) Pistons
                        15) Magic
                        Not bad

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                        • #72
                          The thing I don't understand about the ratings and TV ad revenue discussion is that broadcasts outside of the US are treated as revenue neutral, but they aren't. TSN, Sportsnet, are paying for broadcast rights, airing the games, and brining in ad revenue for a sizeable audience. How is this not acknowledged in an NBA revenue stream discussion? Raptors games are described as "one market games" - but they aren't.

                          Nielsen etc are domestic US ratings so fine, the system isn't crossing borders in its data collection. But Canadian broadcasts also have ratings, rights, and revenue that all goes into the same bank account at the league office, one way or another.

                          I mean, the NBA hasn't been pushing the game internationally for 30 years as a charitable effort. It's for $$$$. Non-US broadcasts grow the game, help drive merch sales, bring in licensing and ad revenue. Why is all this left out? What are the total numbers?
                          ​​​​​
                          "We're playing in a building." -- Kawhi Leonard

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                          • #73
                            S.R. wrote: View Post
                            The thing I don't understand about the ratings and TV ad revenue discussion is that broadcasts outside of the US are treated as revenue neutral, but they aren't. TSN, Sportsnet, are paying for broadcast rights, airing the games, and brining in ad revenue for a sizeable audience. How is this not acknowledged in an NBA revenue stream discussion? Raptors games are described as "one market games" - but they aren't.

                            Nielsen etc are domestic US ratings so fine, the system isn't crossing borders in its data collection. But Canadian broadcasts also have ratings, rights, and revenue that all goes into the same bank account at the league office, one way or another.

                            I mean, the NBA hasn't been pushing the game internationally for 30 years as a charitable effort. It's for $$$$. Non-US broadcasts grow the game, help drive merch sales, bring in licensing and ad revenue. Why is all this left out? What are the total numbers?
                            ​​​​​
                            The NBA knows those numbers for sure, but they're a private company so don't release them unless they want to. I'm sure the players association knows too as that revenue is included when they calculate cap and everything. I think we get a lot of the contract details because the stations airing in the USA are all publicly traded so the news has to come out from their end. For instance Disney needs to publicly disclose contract details when they get rights agreements for ESPN.

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                            • #74
                              Fully vaccinated individuals: Not required to quarantine if close contact. No restrictions on team activities.

                              Non-fully-vaccinated: Required to quarantine for seven days if close contact. Masks at facilities/team travel. Not able to sit next to other players during activities.
                              I hope that no Raptor players are self entitled and be an ignorant anti vaxx IDIOT

                              Because I am sure this can be use as another bullshit excuse especially if this team may struggle as a result of 2 or 3 players not playing due to violation of the league Vaccination Guidelines

                              the pre-season optimism by some stating that this team has a “death” trap line up could be more realistic in a bad way

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                              • #75
                                Masai and Bobby bring in character guys, I’m sure most of the guys are vaccinated. We got rid of TD, who was the dumbass of the group.

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