NBA Ratings Drop 15% After Selling Out Hong Kong, Cozying Up to China
The National Basketball Association has seen its ratings decline by 15 percent this year. Plenty of publications have spilled significant digital ink examining why this is.
Variety, reporting on the phenomenon, blamed the usual culprits. The league has seen an unusual number of star players sitting out big matchups this year, for one, with new Los Angeles Clippers signing Kawhi Leonard missing several nationally televised games and first overall draft pick Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans out from the beginning of the year with an injury.
The Hollywood Reporter, meanwhile, noted how cable subscribers are down — which means many of the matches on ESPN and TNT aren’t going to get watched by cord-cutters.
All of this may indeed be true. I don’t get ESPN or TNT and even if I did, I’m not tuning into a Pelicans matchup that doesn’t feature Williamson. Beyond that, though, there was an interesting similarity between both the Variety and THR pieces: Neither one mentioned the biggest public relations faceplant that the NBA faced over the 2019 offseason.
In analyses of the ratings drop that were by no means short, writers for neither publication could find space to mention that the world’s premier basketball league spent the run-up to the regular season cozying up to the Chinese government and market after one of its general managers supported pro-democracy protesters in China. The NBA only reversed course after bipartisan outrage in the United States.
First the numbers, which don’t look all that good. Overall viewership for the league is down 15 percent, while the numbers are even worse on cable. TNT has seen its viewership down 21 percent while ESPN has seen a 19 percent drop.
Obviously, some of this is due to absent stars. Fully 63 percent of games on cable have had one or more major players out of the lineup, including 11 of 14 on TNT.
The fall of the Golden State Warriors, previously the league’s premier franchise, has also no doubt played a part in this. The Warriors are dumpster fire-level bad this year, posting a 9-24 record so far — after a four-game winning streak.
However, neither piece spent any time looking at the league’s shameful behavior in the wake of Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s Oct. 4 tweet supporting the ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
China is the NBA’s biggest market outside of the United States, and it was clear from the moment Morey published his Twitter post that the league was going to get pushback from the Chinese government — as well as the regime’s hypernationalist supporters, who always make a show out of burning the jerseys of whatever team and/or organization has run afoul of Beijing.
(Soccer star Mesut Ozil was the latest to experience this fun little phenomenon, as a comment he made in support of Uighur Muslims being kept in prison camps by the Chinese government was met by fans burning his uniform and his erasure from the Chinese version of a soccer video game.)
The league’s pusillanimity in the face of Big Brother was the defining aspect of the story. Even though NBA executives would eventually grow something resembling courage in the matter, Morey was left out to dry by the league’s top names. Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta said that Morey “does NOT speak” for the Rockets, a team that’s “NOT a political organization.” It was later reported that the Rockets considered firing Morey over the post.
It didn’t just stop with the Rockets. “We recognize that the views expressed by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable,” the NBA said in a statement.
“While Daryl has made it clear that his tweet does not represent the Rockets or the NBA, the values of the league support individuals’ educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them.
“We have great respect for the history and culture of China and hope that sports and the NBA can be used as a unifying force to bridge cultural divides and bring people together.”
Here’s Lakers superstar LeBron James on the matter: “I’m not here to judge how the league handled the situation. I just think that, when you’re misinformed or you’re not educated about something — and I’m just talking about the tweet itself — you never know the ramifications that can happen.
“We all see what that did, not only did for our league but for all of us in America, for people in China as well. Sometimes you have to think through the things that you say that may cause harm not only for yourself but for the majority of people. I think that’s just a prime example of that.”
It wasn’t just him. Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich, head coaches who have no problem going after President Trump and conservatives in the most abrasive of terms, couldn’t even muster the courage to back the Rockets general manager for exercising the same freedom of speech.
Morey himself backtracked on the tweet in a statement that sounded a bit like the script to one of those grainy tapes in which hostages pledge unalloyed fealty in a halting voice to the organization or government that currently has possession of them.
“I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event,” Morey wrote in an Oct. 6 Twittter post.
“I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives. I have always appreciated the significant support our Chinese fans and sponsors have provided and I would hope that those who are upset will know that offending or misunderstanding them was not my intention.”
This controversy consumed virtually all of the month of October for the NBA — kind of a problem when you consider that’s the run-up to the season, when attention ought to be on off-season free agency moves and building anticipation for the coming games.
And the outrage wasn’t just confined to one corner of the American political spectrum, either. Continue these two tweets on the matter — particularly, who they came from:
As a lifelong @HoustonRockets fan, I was proud to see @dmorey call out the Chinese Communist Party’s repressive treatment of protestors in Hong Kong.
Now, in pursuit of big $$, the @nba is shamefully retreating. https://t.co/7waMde5KrM
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 7, 2019
The only thing the NBA should be apologizing for is their blatant prioritization of profits over human rights. What an embarrassment. https://t.co/bbiwCBTwc1
— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) October 7, 2019
Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke, recently seen duking it out in the most expensive — and certainly one of the ugliest — Senate contest in U.S. history, both agreed this was an outrage and an act of cowardice. Getting those two on the same page politically is like getting all the little children in the world to clap their hands simultaneously.
China and the NBA seemed to unite America, for however brief a moment, in genuine disgust for both of them.
Yes, the NBA eventually grew a spine and stood up for Morey’s rights to freely express his opinion. At that point, it almost didn’t matter. Thanks for the effort, I guess.
I know we have short collective memories, but this story took up practically the entirety of the month leading up to the NBA season — and not just among sports fans, but also Americans just getting woke to China’s “Abandon Free Speech All Ye Who Enter” policy toward multinational corporations that want to do business there.
We can talk about whether or not this was fruitful for Beijing (Xi Jinping’s crew probably ought to be a little more familiar with the “Streisand effect.”) We know it wasn’t good for the NBA.
I’m sure that injuries have played more than their fair part in the ratings drop. I don’t think anyone doubts cord-cutting also has something to do with it.
However, when the league’s preseason was almost entirely clouded by a political gaffe of global proportions, can’t we perhaps look at the fact it may have moved a few people to turn the TV off?
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