The Los Angeles Lakers’ 2024-25 season has started strong, but TV viewership for the NBA as a whole has been low.
There are several possible reasons for this, such as injuries, other sports happening at the same time, or the rise in 3-point shooting making the game harder to watch.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver disagreed with this idea and thinks the slow ratings are just due to the timing, with things like the World Series and the presidential election taking up people’s attention, according to Cheddar:
“I don’t think it has anything to do with the 3-point shot. I think we’re just looking at a couple weeks of ratings. There’s always some unique things. This year, we were up against the World Series, speaking of L.A., the Dodgers and Yankees.
My Yankees didn’t make it, but two very attractive teams and they had a good run, brought in a big audience.
“You had a presidential election that was commanding an enormous amount of attention. So I don’t think it has anything whatsoever to do with the style of play on the floor. I mean, on the style of play, I love where our game is right now. There’s always things we’re looking at to tweak in various ways, but the fans are responding.
“We have more social media traffic than any time in our history. It’s a huge global marketplace of interest in the NBA. So as I said, we’re off to a good start.”
It’s not clear what has caused the NBA’s drop in ratings, but typically, things improve around Christmas, so there is hope that the same will happen this year.
The league is also currently running the Emirates NBA Cup, which has helped increase viewership for regular season games on Tuesday and Friday nights.
However, the NBA will need to find better ways to keep fans interested early in the season, as what they are doing now isn’t enough to boost viewership.
Having high-profile teams like the Lakers competing for the championship will help, so Silver and the league are likely hoping the Lakers stay competitive as they have been so far.
LeBron James also shared what changed during the Lakers’ six-game win streak. After a tough 1-4 road trip, the Lakers have now won six straight games, bringing their record to 10-4. LeBron talked about the improvements during that stretch and why the team has been successful.
“We have some really good sets,” LeBron said. “We have some really good movement, and the team trusts me a lot with the ball, and I’m just trying to put the ball on time, on target, to my guys. And it’s great to have guys that can make shots and guys that can make plays. AR, DLo. Obviously, AD, DK. Rui [Hachimura] when he’s in the lineup. We just try to keep guys’ defenses off balance.”
