‘Go ask the Democrats’: NBA warned league’s ratings will continue to plummet ‘once you detach’ from Americans

NBA ratings have declined and will continue to do so if the league doesn’t connect with the common American, legendary radio host Colin Cowherd warned.

Ratings for the league were poor during the first month of 2024-2025 season, down 28% year over year for games that aired on ESPN, the lead broadcasting partner for the NBA.

This came after a 12% decline in the playoffs last season, leading to an overall drop of 45% since 2012, OutKick reported.

Fox Sports’ Cowherd pummeled the NBA over the ratings, saying the league has failed to win back fans the way other leagues like the NFL and MLB have.

“Ratings are down 48% in the last 12 years, and they have fallen off a cliff this year. And [Commissioner] Adam Silver’s solution is ‘let’s make the courts brighter.'”

Cowherd continued, pointing out that it’s a “really bad look” for the NBA when a family of four goes to a game and the biggest stars are sitting on the bench to conserve energy.

“I like the NBA, but the All-Star Game is now embarrassing, and I think load management is a shame on the league,” he added in a viral clip from his show, “The Herd.”

Cowherd then gave the league a stern warning, drawing comparisons to the failed 2024 election bid of the Democratic Party.

“Go ask the Democrats. Be warned. Once you detach from regular people in America, you will pay a price.”

The new court for the Dallas Mavericks at the American Airlines Center on November 19, 2024, in Dallas, Texas.Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images

In late November, Awful Announcing pointed out an average of 1.22 million viewers during the first half of an ESPN doubleheader; a 40% decline compared to the same time in 2023.

The second game that night pulled just 1.06 million viewers, a 47% drop from the year before.

‘Everybody’s running the same plays.’

Cowherd praised MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred for how he adjusted the league to quell fan disdain over the length of games, for example.

“He gets nothing but criticism because he’s like, ‘Hey, we gotta make our games faster. We gotta get stars at the plate, so I’m gonna change a pitch clock.'”

Regarding the NFL, Cowherd called it a “hard league” but one that has “connectability” to the American Midwest and “regular people,” which the NBA needs to seek out for itself.

The broadcaster then pointed to some of the smaller markets that have been successful in the NFL, such as “tiny Baltimore,” Buffalo, Green Bay, and Kansas City.

“Connectibility,” Cowherd reiterated.

At the same time, NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal recently said he believed much of the league’s ratings drop-off has been because of a vast increase in three-point shots.

“Everybody’s running the same plays. … I think viewership will continue to go down unless we switch things back,” O’Neal said, per TalkSport.

According to Front Office Sports, O’Neal is correct about the prevalence of three-point shooting. The average number of three-point attempts per team has nearly tripled since 2000, from 13.7 per team back then to 37 per team in 2024-2025.

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