Why the NBA is Losing Popularity

Another random theory. On why the NBA is losing popularity. Some say the league made a mistake by overemphasizing individual players, since no one could replace Michael Jordan, so the strategy was doomed to fail once he retired. There are other ideas around also.

My own theory is a simple one: TV.

TV is, I think, critical to the long-term popularity of a sport. Make it widely available, especially on network TV, and the popularity will rise. The less available it is, the less popular it becomes.

The reason is, the long term popularity of a sport depends on gaining new fans, either young ones or casual ones. When a sport is only on cable or pay-per-view, the people who watch it are already fans. No non-basketball fan randomly flips to a game on ESPN. But when it’s on NBC, they might. And when you move games to cable, you lose the effect of non/casual fans seeing commercials on network TV. When a sport is primarily on cable, the best you can hope for is to not lose the fans you already have. Gaining new fans becomes much harder.

That’s what I think happened to boxing. Once the big fights started showing exclusively on pay-per-view, the only people who watched were established boxing fans. They gained no new fans who may have stumbled across a fight on network TV or saw a commercial or heard about it and flipped to it. Boxing used to be occupy a huge place in American culture; now it’s a fringe sport.

That’s what I think is also happening to basketball. The majority of the games, even playoff games, are on cable. So its pull on the casual fan has dropped. And thus, it’s losing popularity.

In contrast, football, which is architected around TV, has exploded in popularity. It’s not a coincidence. Network TV is important. That’s also why I think moving Monday Night Football to ESPN and showing games on the NFL Network is a mistake. But at least it still has huge network exposure.

So yeah, I don’t think it was Michael Jordan that made the NBA so popular in the 90s. It was Michael Jordan and the NBA on NBC. That’s my theory.

Incidentally, I think baseball’s slide in popularity (in relative, not absolute terms) is a different issue: it’s become more boring. Every sport needs to change its rules to keep pace with changes in the game and keep it relevant and entertaining. Baseball is hampered by this tradition mentality that makes it resistant to rule changes. The game still changes, but the rules don’t keep up, making the game worse.

As a primary example, the games have become too long. This page notes the increase in baseball game times through history. In 2000, the average game lasted 2:58. That’s up from 2:33 in 1981. In 1942, the average game lasted 2:00. A two-hour baseball game would be way more palatable than the way-too-long games we have now. Change it up a little, baseball.