Shortened NBA Season Has Produced Poor Quality Play, But TV Ratings Are Exploding

With the number of blowouts “rising” and with scoring “down,” the talk around the NBA is “suspect quality of play six weeks into a lockout-shortened, 66-game season” according to Jeff Zillgitt of USA TODAY. In the 325 games through Wednesday, “with 650 chances for teams to get 100 or more points, 103 times they did -- vs. in the first 339 games last year, with 678 chances, they did 334 times.” ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy said, “If you’re objective, the basketball is very poor. ... It’s a choice they made to take money over quality. You can’t begrudge them.” Yet Zillgitt notes with all this, TV ratings “are up, illustrating a point fans made after the exciting end to last season and during the lockout: they want the NBA, good, bad and the ugly” (USA TODAY, 2/3). TNT's Charles Barkley said, “I want to apologize to the fans. I cannot believe how bad the NBA is right now. I’m a fan, first and foremost. Watching the NBA right now, I’m embarrassed for the product we’re putting out there right now. It’s not fun for me to watch these games. I feel bad for the fans because there are probably ten teams worth watching on a nightly basis. They’ve got all the built-in excuses: It’s the lockout. Let me tell you something, if these teams played once a week they would still suck” ("Waddle & Silvy," ESPN Radio 1000 Chicago, 1/31).

NUMBERS DON'T LIE: In N.Y., Jake Appelman noted of the teams “that had already played back-to-back-to-backs, six went 1-2, seven went 2-1 and two elite teams -- the Chicago Bulls and the Oklahoma City Thunder -- went 3-0.” The Pistons became “the first team to go 0-3.” That adds up “to an overall record of 26-22, a .542 winning percentage that would seem to belie the idea that playing three games in three nights puts teams at a disadvantage.” Even better, from the NBA’s “point of view, the record of clubs in the third game of their triathlons, when they might be expected to be too tired to go all out, is currently 9-7” (N.Y. TIMES, 2/2). However, Knicks C Tyson Chandler said of the travel schedule due to the condensed schedule, “It’s difficult as an athlete. Two games back-to-back is already tough but to go three games, it’s a great mental challenge for us” (USA TODAY, 2/3).

HUGE TV RATINGS: TRUE HOOP’s Henry Abbott reported the first 325 games of this NBA season had an average attendance of 17,094, which is “better than 89 percent of capacity, and a hair better than the first 325 games of last season, which averaged 17,057.” But almost “every other indicator blows those in-arena numbers away.” Abbott noted viewership “is going a bit nuts. ... ESPN viewership is up 23 percent. TNT viewership is up 50 percent. NBA TV viewership is up an insane 66 percent. NBA on regional cable sports networks are up 12 percent. Local over-the-airwaves broadcasts are up 36 percent.” Five of NBA TV’s “ten most viewed games ever have been this season.” The audience growth “is not just domestic, either.” In China, the league recently announced that “TV ratings are up 39 percent.” Abbott noted people with knowledge of the bottom line “are all smiles at the moment too.” The league has inked “a huge deal with Sprint, signed up Under Armour, and recently extended existing relationships with Anheuser-Busch, Gatorade, and AutoTrader.com” (ESPN.com, 2/2).