Ratings: New NBA Tournament Is A Failure

The NBA had hoped to boost its sluggish regular season with a new in-season tournament called the NBA Cup. The idea was to incentivize players to take regular season games more seriously and, in return, increase interest among television viewers.

That hasn't happened.

This season, viewership for the NBA Cup is down double digits (10%) from last year's inaugural season. The tournament is averaging 1.5 million viewers on TNT and just 1.16 million viewers on ESPN.

To date, the entire NBA regular season on ESPN is down 28% year over year. The league was already coming off a disappointing season in which its playoff viewership decreased by over 12%.

But, but, but, the league just signed a $77 billion rights deal with Disney, NBC, and Amazon.

No, the NBA is not at risk of closing shop. That said, the league's popularity has diminished greatly. Viewership for the entire NBA is down around 48% since 2012. 

Four of the five lowest-rated NBA Finals of the past 30 years have occurred in the past four years. (11.64 million viewers in 2024, 12.4 million viewers in 2022, 9.91 million viewers in 2021, 7.45 million viewers in 2020.)

But, but, cord-cutting and Netflix!

Nope.

So far this season, the NFL has averaged 17.3 million viewers, its highest average since 2015. This past World Series was the highest-rated since 2017. 

College football is surging. So is the UFC. Over 108 million live global viewers tuned in last Friday to watch Mike Tyson fight Jake Paul. Even the WNBA Finals set an ESPN record in viewership this fall.

The NBA is the only notable professional sports league experiencing viewership declines. And the declines are substantial. 

So much so that, according to the Wall Street Journal, there are already "executives