LAS VEGAS — NBA commissioner Adam Silver acknowledged that television ratings for his sport are down this season, but said the dip did not equate to a lack of interest in pro basketball.
“If you look at other data points, in terms of our business, for example, we’ve just come off the last two years of the highest attendance in the history of this league,” Silver said Tuesday in an interview with The Athletic and other national outlets before the NBA Cup championship. “We’re at a point where our social media audience is at the highest of any league and continuing to grow exponentially. So, it’s not a lack of interest in this game.”
Through the NBA Cup semifinals, which were played Saturday, viewership of NBA games for the league’s national partners — ESPN, ABC, and TNT — was down 19 percent over the same period last year, according to Sports Media Watch.
Silver’s acknowledgment was a little softer — he said “ratings are down a bit” — but pointed to a broader trend of “cable television viewership is down double digits.” Viewership is also down for men’s college basketball (21 percent), women’s college basketball (38 percent), and the NHL (28 percent), Sports Media Watch reported.
“We’re almost at the inflection point where people are…
