Report: TV ratings for NBA return down from pre-hiatus nosedive

NBA television ratings for the league's return in Orlando are lower than when the league went on hiatus in March, according to Ethan Strauss of The Athletic.

Ratings were already suffering before the NBA suspended the season, with Sports Business Daily reporting in February that national television viewership had nosedived 12 percent since the end of the season, compared to 2018-19.

Worse, ratings for ABC broadcasts in 2019-20 averaged 2.95 million viewers, compared to 5.42 million during the lockout season of 2011-12, per Strauss. That represents a drop of 45 percent.

Along with that, Strauss added, TNT's average viewership is down 40 percent since 2011-12, with ESPN experiencing a decline of about 20 percent in that same time frame.

Other sports, such as the NFL and MLB, reportedly have seen viewership increase or hold steady during the same span.

That's not the only reason for concern, Strauss explained.

"While it’s easy to cite 'cord cutting' as a catch-all explanation for what’s going on, keep in mind, Nielsen ratings do incorporate streaming services, albeit imperfectly," Strauss reported. "While some offer theories of pirated games, there just isn’t much evidence that a massive population engages in that, at least not at the scale that would explain this big a drop."

The NBA's national television contract expires soon, and at $2.6 billion, remains the league's largest stream of revenue. Lower ratings could impact those earnings when it's time to negotiate another TV deal.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver addressed the sagging TV ratings in December.

“I’m not surprised that our ratings are down thus far,” Silver said in an interview with The Washington Post. “I’m not concerned, either. In terms of every other key indicator that we look at that measures the popularity of the league, we’re up."

Along with that, the NBA wasn't necessarily expecting a large TV turnout for games being played in August, many of which are being broadcast during weekday afternoons.

Through Aug. 9, regular-season "seeding" games on ESPN were averaging 1.39 million viewers, which was 34 percent larger than the numbers being produced by Major League Baseball games on ESPN (1.03 million).

Also, the game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets on Aug. 6 averaged 1.6 million viewers on TNT -- larger than the MLB games on FOX and the PGA Championship on ESPN.

Still, Strauss wrote that this has been a "ratings disaster of a season, with the NBA’s most-watched game of last week trailing golf, NASCAR and wrestling. This, despite an incredible run of exciting games in Orlando. So far, the NBA built it but very few came."

The NBA playoffs began Monday on the Disney campus.