Adam Silver: the NBA is a "highlights-based sport"

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From Awful Announcing:

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver provided an interesting response when asked about the rising cost of watching games during a press conference on Wednesday.

Asked about the cost of all the subscriptions required to watch games under the NBA’s new media rights agreements with Prime Video, NBC/Peacock, and ESPN, which start next month, Silver highlighted the league’s presence on free social media platforms, discussing how the NBA is a “highlights-based sport.”

“There’s a huge amount of our content that people can essentially consume for free. And this is very much a highlights-based sport. So, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, you name it, any service … there’s an enormous amount of content out there, YouTube is another example that is advertising-based that consumers can consume,” Silver told reporters.

https://awfulannouncing.com/nba/adam...sed-sport.html

Silver said the quiet part out loud -- yes, the NBA is best consumed via short snippets on social media. The typical regular season game is just not worth watching live anymore.

I'm one of those people who still subscribes to a cable TV service that carries a RSN with regular-season NBA games. But I've really been questioning in recent years why I continue to do so. I don't gamble on games, and even if I did, I probably wouldn't watch games live anyway.

Silver's honesty highlights how much the networks and streamers overpaid for the NBA national broadcasting rights. The NBA's popularity is in decline, with the on-court product and style of play -- the constant three-point shooting and pick-and-rolls -- not as entertaining as it used to be. And with superstars like Lebron James and Stephen Curry in the later stages of their careers, the league is going to struggle even more to hold casual-fan interest.

But you've got to give credit to a commissioner who is willing to acknowledge the obvious.