Fans have slammed Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, for ruining the sport as basketball viewing figures plummet by as much as 42% for opening night for the 2023/24 NBA season compared to the previous year.

Despite TNT Sports’ viewership growing by six percent for the New York Knicks vs. Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Los Angeles Lakers on October 23, some worrying numbers emerged from ESPN’s reports.

The network aired the Milwaukee Bucks vs. Philadelphia 76ers and the Phoenix Suns vs. Los Angeles Clippers but only managed to pull in 1.6m people, a drop from 2023 when 2.27 million fans tuned in to watch Victor Wembanyama’s professional debut.

So it was a bad night at the office for ESPN. Not too much to look into, right? Wrong. Thursday, October 24 saw the San Antonio Spurs take on the Dallas Mavericks and whilst 1.45m people watched, that almost marked a decrease of 29%.

Frustrated fans react

It has left fans angry for several reasons such as blackout markets, streaming prices and the costs of cable television as they turn their attention to Silver to criticize his leadership of the sport.

Meanwhile others have hit out at the decision to reject TNT’s request for media rights as well as the attempt to shift the face of the NBA away from LeBron James and Stephen Curry by promoting Anthony Edwards and Jayson Tatum instead.

One user said online, “Blackouts for local markets SUCK how can you expect someone to pay so much money to watch NBA games.”

A second added, “We all know why… this post about to shut down tons of streaming sites even TikTok pages be having better cable packages than me.”

A third commented, “There’s no defense Stars Don’t play the people you hire to cover the game don’t watch it and yall promote the same 6 players.”