In recent years, it’s been very evident that fans have been less willing to watch NBA games. This raises the question of why this is even happening. There are several reasons, whether big or small that heavily impact the viewership since it could be something fans have wanted for a long time, or the opposite being something that fans dislike that continues to be a tradition in the NBA.
Especially recently, with the uprising trend of fans just watching highlights and watching games from social media clips or clips on YouTube as opposed to watching the entire game. There are many factors that play into why the viewership may be decreasing and why some people may just have problems with the NBA as a whole, but a very notable one could be social media.
On the NBA’s official Instagram page, you can very easily see every team that won the games they played that day, and the cover of the picture would be the player who performed the best. With this small post, fans don’t even need to watch the game, they can just see the outcome and see who the best player was by just opening their Instagram on their phone.
This quick and easy method allows people to gather crucial information about games without actually having to watch games, especially since highlights from the games come only minutes after they happen.
Other factors pitch in as well, whether it’s directly in game factors, or other factors around that which make fans upset.
The NBA is a business based on entertainment, this means that the games have to entertain people for the NBA to actually make money by bringing people to the games or making people buy deals to be able to watch.
When it comes to the actual games and the quality of the games, sometimes it becomes a bit lackluster for things such as biased referees who impact the game to favor who they want to win, or the immense increase in the number of threes taken per game as opposed to other era’s of the NBA, or even something called “foul-baiting” which is an informal way of saying a player tries his hardest to get fouled when he goes up for a shot to get free throws.
There have been scandals with biased referees before with one in particular, Eric Lewis. One circumstance that led people to believe he had a bias was during an NBA game of the Lakers vs Celtics. When Lebron James of the Lakers went up for a game-winning layup, he got fouled very clearly on his arm during this layup and was furious that the referee didn’t call the foul since it cost the Lakers a possible easy win.
Comedically, one of James’s teammates brought a camera with the footage of the foul to show Eric Lewis, but as opposed to recalling the missed foul, he sent James’s teammate away with a technical foul.
This clear foul left fans in disbelief and made them all believe that Lewis was hoping to rig the game for the Celtics since he was known to be a fan years before this situation as well.
Similarly, fans are also upset that some referees call ridiculous fouls on players to try to get them fouled out, as a way to influence the game in their way.
One very clear indication of the increase in the number of threes per game is the 24-25 Celtics breaking the 22-23 Warriors record for most threes made in a season. Although this could just be that the Celtics have better three-point shooters, it was likely caused by the number of threes taken per game.
All the teams running up for 2nd to 5th averaged 41-45 threes attempted while the Celtics averaged 48 threes per game showing that they take a significant amount of threes. They also set an all-time record for the most missed threes in a playoff game against the Knicks in Game 1 of the 2025 playoffs.
The issue of this comes from the fans not wanting to see uninteresting gameplay. Many fans have voiced their complaints when it comes to players just sending 3’s constantly, especially since many players have an opportunity for a better and more reliable shot.
A player who gets the blame for this uprise in the number of threes would be Stephen Curry. Stephen Curry is a phenomenal shooter, being considered the unanimous best shooter ever for his achievements in the NBA.
His confidence in his shooting and his ability to shoot inspired many different players to be like him, hoping to gain the shooting ability he has and trying to be like him in this manner.
Also, people just like seeing physicality. Some of the most entertaining players are players who aren’t afraid to go straight to the basket and fight their way for a shot. Players like Ja Morant, Zion Williamson, and Anthony Edwards have been very well known for being like this, and many people claim that today, Anthony Edwards should be the face of the league for his skill and his entertaining athleticism.
This demonstrates the entertainment that primarily comes from physical players, rather than players who are great shooters.
Another small factor could be “foul-baiting” which simply is seen as an unethical practice in basketball. When players try their hardest to get contact for fouls solely for the sake of seeking free throws for free points, it makes fans extremely upset by this and is far from thrilled.
A very well-known NBA player, having a reputation set by fans for playing like this would be Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He recently won MVP of the NBA in 2025, and he still gets hate because people claim he’s a foul-baiter. Even though people recognize that he has done a significant amount for his team and is a great player known for his ability to score, people only see him as a foul-baiter, and he gets a significant amount of hate.
The situation with Gilgeous-Alexander very clearly demonstrates the fans’ issue with foul baiting, since someone as skilled as him gets hate regardless of his clear success.
Overall, the quality of the games is a big decisive factor when it comes to the amount of views incoming for the NBA.
During the NBA All-Star weekend over the years, it has been on a steady decline in viewership. The weekend is broken up into five sections: the Rising Star game, Dunk Contest, 3-point Contest, Skills Contest, and the main event the All-Star game.
Throughout the years the dunk contest has been a fan favorite as the most athletic players get to showcase their creativity in the air and put on for their team. Creating countless iconic moments for fans such as Vince Carter’s 360 windmill dunk to close out his victory and Blake Griffin jumping over the hood of a KIA car to receive a perfect score of 50 to win the contest.
However, in recent years Superstars have refused to participate in the event which means lesser-known NBA players are competing in the event. As fans, they are less likely to watch if they see no recognizable faces. For the last three seasons, Mac McClung has won the dunk contest but is not on an NBA roster and is in the G league. This shows that the league struggles to find prominent players.
A notable superstar who started the trend of not participating in the dunk contest is Lebron James. Throughout his entire career fans have raved for arguably the greatest player in NBA history whose main strength is his ability to fly to the rim and make jaw-dropping dunks to compete in the contest. However, claims it was not a goal of his and would be a waste of his time. Stars around the league follow suit in not competing such as Ja Morant, Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Garnett, and Russell Westbrook, who were all well known for their dunking ability.
The main event of All-Star Weekend is the game itself. In the early 2000s and the 2010s, the game was beloved by fans all across the world. Fans loved how the league’s best players in the East and West competed with intensity with the games coming down to the last buzzer.
On the other hand, in recent years the NBA’s best players do not play with the same level of intensity as years prior. It shifted from players competing hard to players giving little to no effort throughout the game. Fans are disappointed as the peak years of the all-star Game were highlighted by a prime Kobe Bryant going shot for shot with Michael Jordan, or Kobe scoring 31 points in 2002 leading him to obtain the All-Star Game MVP.
These were two of the most popular players and the faces of the NBA at one point, and they both gained popularity through their fierce mentality and their play on the court. Consequently, they took the game seriously and fans loved seeing rivalries and competition.
As for recently, players who participate in the game take it less seriously which means the biggest highlights of the All-Star Game were more comedic aspects where it was entertaining more in the aspect of a fun game rather than a competitive game, there is a small sub-section of fans that do enjoy it, but the overwhelming majority prefer the aspect of competitiveness as years before.
The 3pt contest is an event that showcases the best three point shooters in the league. However, the NBA has failed to gravitate fans toward this event over the years. Unlike the dunk contest the event has star power as there are many fan favorites competing. Such as Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, Karl Anthony Towns etc. Fans have grown tired of the same old routine of the contest. There are five basketballs set up at the top of the key, corners, and wings and the player has to make a three pointer to earn points. If the league makes an effort to change up the format of the event it would make people want to tune in and watch.
One of the least viewed events over All Star weekend is the rising stars game. It is a game where young players that are in the first two years of their career compete against each other. This allows them to showcase their talents and potential to fans across the world. But the game is heavily overlooked and casted aside as it has been the same format for multiple years, fans much rather skip the event entirely.
Awards are always a big entertaining factor for fans since awards are very career-defining for players, and fans love to debate with friends about which player or team is better, using awards to argue for the NBA players they like.
But, there are very clear issues when it comes to awards and how they get decided since many factors tend to negatively influence the decision of the winner of these awards.
One thing that needs to be spoken about is voter fatigue. This is a belief that a player who gets nominated for a finalist for an award is unlikely to win several times in a row regardless of how good they actually are for that specific award. This is primarily sought out in the MVP(most valuable player) award and has had many potential players who have fallen victim to this.
One player that can be spoken about for potentially falling victim to voter fatigue can be Lebron James.
Lebron James is a 4x MVP winner, and many people argue that he would have won more in years such as 2011 being the most prominent year. James was on an MVP streak coming off two hot seasons in 2009 and 2010, but couldn’t secure it in 2011 even though he had better stats than the actual winner. Although many other factors needed to be considered, many people believed that James was the clear winner.
This demonstrates that sometimes the awards could potentially be rigged to avoid repetitiveness, and fans despite this. Fans always argue about awards, and many people tend to add voter fatigue into the equation to determine who will win MVP.
Another factor could be bias. It ties in hand in hand with voter fatigue, but it’s different in the sense that voter fatigue focuses on who needs to win, while bias is more about who the voter wants to win.
This is another issue since voting should be completely unbiased, and should be only determined by a player’s performance as a basketball player whether or not the voters likes or dislikes them, There is no way to exactly determine a bias, but a possibility of this bias being evident could be for Lebron James again, and Shaquille O’Neal.
These two players won an MVP, but what made them stand out was the fact that they had received 120/121 votes for first place. Getting all first place votes is what the NBA calls a unanimous MVP which only one player has won as of today. The part where some believe bias came in was the fact that for O’Neal, that one first-place vote went to the player who placed 7th for the MVP voting, and for James, it was a player who placed 3rd for that year’s MVP.
Although there was just a simple possibility that one person who voted against these two could have just believed the other player was better, some people looked into the two who voted against these two and they were very infamous for being biased against the two players.
Similarly, this is the same situation with voter fatigue since fans don’t want to see unfair and biased voting at all, especially when these awards mean so much to these players. These small issues could be why fans tend to stop watching the NBA as it suffers from problems fans dislike so much of.
As for a more direct reason why the viewership is decreasing would be just general issues with streaming and watching the NBA.
Entering the 2020’s there was a rise in brands creating streaming platforms due to people’s inability to leave their house. Before this the main source of watching NBA games was from cable, families for decades could turn on their television to watch their favorite team.
However, as of recently there has been an urge to shift sports to streaming platforms such as Netflix, HULU, Paramount etc. Certain cable deals across America have been disbanded and people can no longer watch every single team in the NBA that is not close to their region unless you pay for League Pass. Now teams will have exclusive games only on specific streaming platforms to push people to buy their subscriptions.
Fans are outraged as it is severely more expensive to pay for multiple streaming platforms rather than one cable deal. Due to this there are alot of good NBA teams that people can’t see now due to them not living in the state. Such as the Orlando Magic, Milwaukee Bucks, and Chicago Bulls. All these teams have quality players that can turn into stars but fans do not know much about them.
As an alternative to both cable deals being cut and streaming platforms are on the rise, fans turn to illegal websites to watch NBA games. These sites are free and many social media influencers will go to these websites and stream the game to their viewers.
The way viewership is calculated is through cable viewership with the steady decline of cable viewers it reflects as the NBA fan base is dying. However, fans still watch the league but use different methods either through illegal websites or highlight clips on social media.
This provides the alternative that, maybe the viewership isn’t entirely going down but rather is being redirected. But regardless of this, fans still have many issues with the way some parts of the NBA is run and will continue to be upset until they get fixed.
