inliner311
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I have to imagine part of the issue with ratings is most of the biggest stars play on the West Coast, making a lot of games hard to watch for fans, Durant, the best/2nd best player in the league is out all year.
Also for the Eastern Conference you have 6 teams 14 games or more over 500, then 9 teams under 500, with the 7th best team being 6 games under .500. Over in the west, its not much better, 7 teams over .500, 1 team at .500 and 7 teams under .500.
The league as a whole has 13 teams over .500. We are still feeling the fall out of GS, you have so many top heavy teams now, very little average teams, and a bunch of bad teams. Bad basketball is not fun to watch.
The other issue with ratings is Dish/Sling dropped the fox regional sports networks. Others followed suit after that. Fubo got rid of them and At&t remove regional sports from alot of their base packages especially with the streaming.
Add to that people who just cut the cord and didn't sign up for a cable alternative who would randomly tune into a game and now just watch Netflix or Hulu instead.
The NBA will have to change their model going forward and rethink the regional sports networks and cable in general as their way to reach an audience. The MLB has already removed blackout rules for streaming. The NBA will have to follow suit and find other ways to get games to a wider audience. Cable TV is dying and sports leagues need to adjust quickly so their business isn't so heavily tied to it.