Several basketball fans were blacked out from watching Game 5 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic in the first round of the NBA Playoffs on Tuesday. The game was aired on NBA TV, but the only way to view the contest locally was through Bally Sports Ohio. Amid Ch. 11 bankruptcy hearings for Diamond Sports Group and carriage disputes, those consumers utilizing services that do not have an agreement with the regional sports network provider were left in the dark. In fact, Diamond did not come to terms with Comcast on a new agreement ahead of the expiration of its deal Tuesday night, resulting in its channels being removed from the service.
Sentiments of frustration from fans unable to watch the pivotal game within the playoff series, a similar scenario to what occurred for Game 2 and Game 3 within the best-of-seven battle. NBA TV, which is operated by Warner Bros. Discovery and majority-owned by the NBA itself, has aired several games throughout the first round of the NBA Playoffs. Games aired on the platform are also televised on regional sports networks, but some consumers were ultimately locked out of both options.
“I think this is dangerous practices from the NBA because if you can’t find a way to get your product to the people, it makes them care less,” Ken Carman, co-host of The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima, said on the Wednesday morning edition of the program on 92.3 The Fan. “Football – you can say what you want to about football. Football can do anything they want – I’m serious, they’re above the law. The NFL is above the law. They can do anything they want; they can play it at any time. It doesn’t matter – they don’t care and you will watch.”
The recent slate of NFL playoff games ahead of Super Bowl LVIII averaged 38.5 million viewers, which represents the most-watched playoffs on record for the league since they started being recorded in 1988. Year-over-year, the viewership figure was up 9% and ultimately led to a Super Bowl matchup that garnered a record-setting average of 123.6 million viewers across platforms. Conversely, the 2023 NBA Playoffs – including the NBA Finals – averaged 5.47 million viewers on ABC, ESPN and TNT, the most-watched presentation of the league playoffs in five years. Carman perceived the discrepancies in the viewership and emphasized that the league is making things difficult on its fans.
“The NBA has it pretty good, but you better make your product attainable by your fanbase because they will find other things,” Carman said, “and so you better make it attainable, and I think that some people are just going, ‘You know what? I can’t see it; I’m locked out of it. Hopefully you win, but if you don’t win, it’s out of sight, out of mind.’”
Carman does not understand why the league is complicating matters for consumers with discretionary income aiming to spend their money to watch games. Moreover, he asserted that people do not want things synthesized to them regarding how to access the games as if they are a 6-year-old. As evidence of such, he pointed to the NFL Wild Card game exclusively streamed on Peacock that marked the most-streamed event in U.S. history with an average minute audience of 23 million viewers across platforms. A subsequent study by Antenna stated that the platform retained 71% of its sign-ups related to the game seven weeks after it had occurred.
“People are not wanting to splice things together,” Carman said. “They want an easy, simple way that sounds cheap to get your product. That’s what they want – an easy way.”
