There’s no debating that television ratings for the 2020 NBA playoffs are down from previous years. The big question is why they’re down.
There are clearly some unique circumstances. For starters, due to the league’s COVID-19 hiatus, the 2020 playoffs were held from August through October, as opposed to the usual April through June period. That means competition for viewers from other sports, such as football and the Major League Baseball postseason, that isn’t usually there.
Other potential issues include a lack of fans at games; the disjointed nature of a season that was halted for months just before the playoffs; increased competition from cable news channels in a U.S. presidential election year; and the pandemic changing general viewing habits. It also doesn’t help that the matchups haven’t been especially compelling, with the Los Angeles Lakers yet to be pushed beyond five games in any series.
Then, there’s this theory: Are some viewers be tuning out due to NBA players speaking out more aggressively on issues related to civil unrest? That’s what Ted Cruz, a U.S. Senator from Texas, seems to believe.
I love @HoustonRockets & have rooted for them my entire life. I happily cheer for the Spurs & Mavericks against any non-TX team.
But @mcuban the NBA is engaged in a concerted effort to (1) insult their fans & (2) turn every game into a left-wing political lecture. That’s dumb. https://t.co/uKSgvPhEcq
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 6, 2020
In a contentious back-and-forth on Twitter with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Cruz said that even though he’s a fan of the Houston Rockets, 2020 marks the first time in years that he hasn’t watched an NBA Finals game. In recent playoff runs, Cruz has attended several Rockets games in person — most notably, the team’s painful Game 7 loss in the 2018 Western Conference Finals to eventual champion Golden State.
As for the issue of TV ratings and reasons for the slippage, it’s probably an “all of the above” situation. Politics are potentially part of the explanation, but there’s a wide variety of circumstances all contributing to the decline. It could take until the 2020-21 NBA season — and a more “apples to apples” comparison with when and where games are played, relative to historical norms — to get a better sense of the landscape.
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I wish @mcuban loved his fans as much as he loves Chinese money. https://t.co/Wm4qkRMStP
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 6, 2020