NBA and NHL Ratings are heading in Oposite Directions.  The playoffs are showing this and it is getting exciting for one league and not so exciting for the other.  You guess which one.   You probably don’t have to guess.  Once legue has the backing of two high power network.  The other one the network hides the games deep in the cable tv channels and you have to search for them.  Yet somehow they are actually pulling some numbers.  At least in the cities where the teams are located.

The NBA  all the games are on ESPN.   The sports network.   Even though the network as a whole is not what it used to be.  It is still in more cable packages than any other sports network.  We are not talking about any broadcast networks at this point.  Just the channels that are only available by paying extra.  Either through a cable subscription, Satellite,  or an app on your smart TV phone or Tablet.  With the NBA having the weight of ESPN they should already have a built in advantage for the numbers.

The NBA numbers overall are still larger then the numbers for the NHL.  So the NBA still pulls in more eyes on a given game.  The NBA did get beat in the ratings by the now defunct AAF.  So even with the less attention it still appears that Football still wins.   Even non NFL football for a league that failed and got no support at all from ESPN.

So what is causing the change in the trajectories of the ratings?

I think that that there are a few things that are happening here.

Basketball has hit a saturation point.  They are no longer bringing in the casual or fringe fans.  Take a look at NASCAR.  The same thing happened.  The sport was growing very well.  Then they made some changes that they though the people wanted.  Turns out they did not.  The biggest being that the rules they play by now are not the same rules that people learned when they were growing up.  This has confused a lot of people and makes it less interesting to them

The other big problem is that people can not identify with the players.  This is not unique the the NBA but very much so plays a roll in what is happening.  The NBA has had a problem with this going back decades.  Especially when some players said some strange things about not being able to feed their family even though they were making $10 million a year.  I get it they want more but still an odd thing to say.   It is also something that the average fan cannot identify with since if they had that much money they would be able to take care of their family for life.

The other problem is game excitement.  The first round of the NBA playoffs was a snooze fest.  The regular season is pretty much a snooze fest as well.  When you have your primary broadcast partner talking all the time about how much better the off season moves are than the regular season.  You have a problem.  With the horrible first round of the NBA playoffs all the excitement has gone.  Even with new teams in the East in Milwaukee and Toronto the excitement has not returned.  Both teams have some really interesting and exciting players that are young and on the rise.  Other than in those two cities it has not led to increased ratings.  This again points to the LeBron problem that the NBA has.

In the West.  Everyone already knew what was going to happen so there really was no reason to watch at all.  The series that happened in the second round between the Warriors and the Rockets really should have been the Western conference final.  With that series ending in a dud there really was nothing to watch in the west.  It will be interesting or rather could be interesting to see if the Raptors or the Bucks can put up a challenge for the Warriors.

On the NHL side the numbers have started to stagnate as well.  The numbers started out so well with the exciting games in the first round.  The second round was still pretty exciting.  The third round not as much.  The Bruins swept the Hurricanes so once again we will have a Boston team playing for a championship.  That is great for the city of Boston but the rest of the world is just starting to tune out.  This is not a Boston problem.  It is a rest of the country problem.  The other teams better get it figured out if they want to beat the teams in Boston.  At least in the NBA they were able to get the Boston team out of the playoffs.

It will be interesting to see how the numbers for the finals go.  With the Warriors and the Bruins in those cities will fare well.  But will the rest of the country care.   Probably not.