Skip to main content
We may receive compensation from affiliate partners for some links on this site. Read our full Disclosure here.

NBA Ratings Drop Drastically, But the UFC Surges


1,777 views

Since the NBA commissioner Adam Silver has allowed political propaganda to infiltrate the NBA, ratings have gone down 23%.

One of the biggest voices in the NBA Lebron James has also taken repeated shots at President Trump which has caused many fans to just stop watching games.

On the other hand, the UFC has seen their ratings go up by 30%

The UFC chose the opposite route of the NBA  and chose not to immerse tons of political propaganda into their sport.

However, the UFC didn’t completely stay out of politics though.

UFC President Dana White recently spoke a fiery speech at the RNC which honestly probably boosted the UFC’s ratings.

https://twitter.com/DamonSalvadore1/status/1300074437446963202

 

 Sports Illustrated wrote about the NBA struggles, check out what they had to say:

Ratings for broadcasts of NBA games remained shaky over the weekend, per Sports Media Watch, continuing a season-long trend of the league struggling to attract television viewers.

“Weekday afternoon games have certainly hurt, but the first weekend of the NBA Playoffs was no ratings bonanza either,” according to Sports Media Watch.

Compared to the last season, ABC’s first playoff game of this season fell 23 percent in ratings and 21 percent in viewership.

“The Lakers’ win ranks as ABC’s least-watched playoff opener in five years (2015 Pelicans-Warriors: 3.49M), with the caveat that this year marked the first time since 2004 that it did not air a game on the opening day of the postseason,” Sports Media Watch reported.

 

The UFC has had an increase in viewership recently according to a report by Yahoo Sports:

The UFC has produced 19 pay-per-view fight cards during its relationship with ESPN, which began 20 months ago in January 2019. Seven of those were held thus far in 2020, with four of them happening since its May 9 return from a break caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

NATIONAL POLL: Do You Trust Fox News?

Three of the five largest pay-per-views have come during the coronavirus era, which is a strong sign that the partnership is continuing to grow despite the struggling U.S. economy and massive job loss caused by the pandemic.

“What we’re finding is that the UFC continues to grow on our platforms,” Matt Kenny, ESPN’s vice president of programming and acquisitions, told Yahoo Sports. “There is always competition and we want to provide consumers the most choice and we want to serve as broad and diverse an audience as possible. The UFC is obviously a big part of that. We’re proud of how it’s performed and continues to perform throughout this pandemic.”

A lot of NBA spokesperson believes the drop is coming from the fact there are no fans in the crowd and because the games are during the day instead of at night.

Others believe the ratings are low because the NBA decided to politicize the league.

Will you be watching the NBA playoffs?

How about the  UFC?



 

Join the conversation!

Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!

Hey, Noah here!

Wondering where we went?

Read this and bookmark our new site!

See you over there!

Thanks for sharing!