When the NBA arena’s lights go out and the crowd’s roars subside, the harsh truth of viewership erupts. It’s one which highlights a stark reality instead of a victorious tale. With speculation circling like leaves in the wind, the drop in viewers has become a mystery in the labyrinth of basketball’s evolving narrative. Along with NBA legend and Hall of Fame Shaquille O’Neal, NBA champion Kevin Garnett, whose insights into the game are as profound as the rebounds he once captured, continues to add his voice to the conversation.

Garnett got into a conversation with the host of NBA Today Justin Termine and Former Basketball player and NBA Analyst Eddie A Johnson, where he threw a curveball into the ongoing debate about NBA viewership.

“Viewership is down from traditional television, meaning that come in with your family, you sit down at dinner, we all sit down, we watch the NBA, you know, on CBS or NBC. Right? Those days are over with. The fact that I can pull my phone out and watch the game wherever I wanna be at, if I’m at dinner or if I’m over at your house or if I’m in traffic or if I’m on a bus or I’m coming, whatever. The league has done a great job of making it digital and seeing the game anywhere,” he mentioned.

He then added, “So you know what? In the forms of where we have new ways of watching the game, things like playback, things like, I mean, all the different social networks you can go to to find a game. Right? You gotta know that, with all these different derivatives or these different ways of watching it, that the traditional way is always gonna get beat up. Right?”

Garnett continued, “But you gotta, you gotta know too that I think that we’ve been taught a certain level or a certain type of basketball. And I think everybody that has been a basketball lover over these years has to take into account that we are seeing a new style of basketball, probably not to our liking and probably not to the one that we’ve been taught, probably not to the one that we’ve been taught to watch. Right?”

He concluded by saying, “But when you ingest it and you look at it and you look at it from the fan, from the young person’s perspective, because I watch a game with a young… you ever watch a game with a young person? Man, they saw ADD. They watch it. They offer. They end it. It was back and forth. Right? Mhmm. So I had to understand that viewer and understand that’s how they watch the game.”

The True Culprit Behind the Curtain

On his “Big Podcast” on the DraftKings network, O’Neal, known for his candidness, had pointed towards the repetitive nature of three-point shooting as the culprit behind fans turning away from the game.

“It’s down because we’re looking at the same thing,” O’Neal said. “Everybody is running the same plays…Steph Curry and those guys messed it up. I don’t mind Golden State back in the day shooting threes, but every team isn’t a 3-point shooter. So why everybody has the same strategy? I think it makes the game boring.”

“The game has already been perfect ever since Naismith created it,” he claimed. “This new era of humans f–ked it up… Golden State came in and changed it and you made a great point, it’s a copycat league. Everybody wants to be Steph Curry, but everybody’s not Steph Curry and that’s why viewership is down. But these dudes, they need to wake up because if viewership is down, the money is gonna come down.”

This discussion around viewership has not gone unnoticed by the NBA’s leadership. Adam Silver admitted NBA ratings are down this season, but isn’t ready to blame the game’s style of play the other way observers are. 

Speaking to the media before Tuesday’s NBA Cup final in Las Vegas, the NBA commissioner acknowledged “ratings are down a bit,” but was quick to point out “cable viewership is down double digits.” 

“We’re almost at the inflection point where people are watching more programming on streaming than they are in traditional television,” Silver said. “And it’s a reason why for our new television deals, which will enter into next year, every game is going to be available on a streaming service. And as we move to streaming service, putting aside how the actual game is played on the floor, it’s going to allow us from a production standpoint to do all kinds of things that you can’t do through traditional television.”

While both O’Neal’s and Garnett’s insights offer valuable food for thought, the truth likely lies in a combination of these factors. The NBA’s challenge is to reignite the passion of fans by ensuring each game feels significant, while also adapting to a changing media landscape to make basketball as accessible and compelling as ever. Silver’s response suggests the league is aware but perhaps the real test is in how they evolve with these insights to recapture the hearts of viewers.