Charles Barkley: “It is so difficult for fans to find the [NBA] games now. I think we’ve done a disservice to the fans and to the game. … The fans are the backbone and we want to support these networks.”
For the more loyal fans with League Pass, we need to get rid of the exclusivity. Every game should be on League Pass
Here in Spain I can watch all games with League Pass, its fucked up that you guys cant
I bet it’s way cheaper to get a VPN + league pass in that country than it is to have every service needed to watch all the games
A few years ago, I read that India League Pass was like $20/year. I never tried that though
I just tried it and it would be $16 when connected through a VPN from India, but when I got to pay it makes me say I’m from India on my credit card and it declined it since I’m in the US
Yeah, back then I was planning on asking for help from coworkers in India. But I wanted to stay legit, even if they’re screwing us.
lol drank that kool aid
Back when I made mine several years ago I registered with my VPN somewhere in South America just cause it was cheaper, all I had to do was provide an address in that country so I just typed in a random one. India was by far the cheapest, but everyone said for India you had to have a VPN on to watch it, not just to register, which I don’t have to do.
yeah you’ll need a way to pay in the local currency. Doesn’t have to be India. I used to do this when I was a big gamer and games were still releasing on local time even online (which is dumb af lol). For whatever reason hong kong was easier than NZ so that’s what I used. I could play games 13 hours earlier.
edit: Ecuador, el Salvador, and Zimbabwe might work since they use the US dollars. A credit card won’t work but maybe Paypal or a local equivalent of Paypal
Eye pea tea vee has been amazing for me, five years strong. It’s not always perfect and it’s obviously much shadier and customer service is nothing like these big companies, but basically every sport event is on there. The feed quality is usually good enough and the price is unbeatable. Can’t ask for much more.
Dont even need the VPN, just the 140-ish € and you are good
How are you gonna get european league pass without a vpn?
live in europe is what he’s saying
Wait it works outside of Spain itself?
Havent tried it much outside Spain tbf, in Andorra it worked but thats very close so cant tell Edit: im fucking stupid and didnt understand the question, its real late so thats my excuse haha
The NBA has been cracking down on this. Used to be a common strategy over a decade ago, back when RealGM was the main basketball forum.
But in recent years, the NBA has been checking payment methods as well as watching for people connecting from known VPN IPs.
They also ILP way crappier for some reason. Used to be far superior to the NA league pass.
It’s probably why the NBA is so popular outside of the US. Being able to watch any game within the same app is how it should be.
Yeah international league pass has improved so much over the years, it’s pretty good value if you’re outside the States
International league pass actually got way worse. They changed the player few years ago and now we have same meh quality (720p) but fewer feature. The previous player displayed bookmarks on the time bar for each made basketball assist, rebound and so on. Also it was way less buggy than the current one.
I switched to League Pass through Prime Video this year, it’s doing the job for me since I basically don’t care about anything else but watching games live or in replay. I guess it could at least be better in terms of image quality for you.
Same here in the Philippines and other asian countries
League Pass is great, except for the local blackouts so they can force you to buy 4 other subscriptions to watch your local team.
I feel you, I’m in Orange County California. So no Clippers or Lakers for me :(
The national TV games are what used to get me. I don’t have cable or a truly local team so the idea of having a single subscription to watch everything was great. Until opening night rolled around and I wasn’t able to watch. Or the several high profile matchups I was looking forward to throughout the season that were also not available on league pass. Compared to the NFL and Premier League streaming packages I’ve had that gave me access to every single game, no questions asked.
Local 🤣 My local blackouts are for teams that are 4 and 6 hours away. They don’t even broadcast on my local networks.
Even when you’re out of network you don’t get any of the national games, which for some teams are like the ~20 best game lol
The local blackouts are the stupidest thing ever. You mean the game I likely want to watch the most are the ones I can’t watch? So dumb!
They’re creating/protecting the local broadcast rights. Like in OC, I need a Lakers sub and a Clippers sub to watch local teams. While I can afford it, I have refused to… which means I’m a fan and watch other teams.
It’s beyond annoying having games blacked out constantly
Worst feeling ever to login to league pass to watch my team and I see the game is on Amazon😔
They unfortunately make too much money licensing out the games to other networks. They don’t give a F about the fans 😢
Yep, it’s a business and those numbers work out better for them. See: gambling on everything :(
The numbers work out better AND the viewership is generally trending up. It’s hard for them to think something is wrong when everything is up.
They unfortunately make too much money licensing out the games to other networks.
NBA fans have never had more options to watch our game than they do today!
Lp been a game changer this season
For us pirates, every game is on anytime
Here in Canada we need to pay for two separate services to get Raptors games - it’s like \(55/month (\)35ish USD)
A comparison can be made in how pharmaceutical companies get all their ROI on a new drug from American wallets and insurance companies (while people in, say, Canada or Germany pay a lot less). The NBA is expanding its presence overseas via affordable access while squeezing American consumers. (And ”free market” loving billionaire-funded politicians in the U.S. will do nothing about either situation.)
Just get League Pass, Amazon Prime, Espn, ABC, NBC, Peacock. That’s all.
PREACH!!! League pass should be LEAGUE PASS. Period!
Thank you. And the local blackout crap is ridiculous. I can’t watch any New Orleans or Orlando games on League Pass without paying the extra fee. I live in Northwest Florida.
I have league pass and I hate that there is a location blackout. I already pay enough, why do I need MSG/YES or Gotham to check out games instead of seeing it on the app??
It’s nuts. A huge disservice to fans. As an out- of-state Cavs fan, I also can’t watch when we play either NY team.
Not being able to watch your home market team is the silliest and craziest shit ever
That would be a massive blow for cable, which is why it hasn’t happened yet
Wait what? You guys don’t have all the games on the game pass? The hell are you paying them for?
facts. I have league pass, prime, peacock, and an antenna but it feels like every game is on ESPN lately. At least when games were on TNT, you could watch the TNT overtime stream on league pass with the weird camera angles.
I got an alert on Apple TV to watch a favorite team. Clicked over and it took me to Amazon where it had a padlock saying unneeded to subscribe to a trial of league pass. That’s very annoying
True. The main thing holding back the NBA from booming? Accessibility. That being said, viewership really is higher than analytics show because this poor accessibility leads to people sailing the seas instead of using official sites..
And gambling ads 24⁄7
That’s just all sports at this point. Not unique to the NBA
and the medicine commercials not NBA related but im sick of hearing about Skyrizzi
I wish they would just outlaw all those ads tbh.
they have in many countries (i believe australia is one of them?)
control is everything toOo mEe
Sounds like someone needs some once daily Caplyta
Helps with med school rotations tho lowkey.
I got pimped (asked) about other treatment options for plaque psoriasis and said Skyrizi and my attending was mildly impressed lol
Ads? Half the games are on a network owned by a gambling company
I’ll take the over on that statement.
And the worst refs in the 4 major American sports
Not even close to umps shittiness
I’d stomach the gambling ads if it meant I could watch my team play. I hate them but its not stopping me from watching my favorite NFL team. The games not being on tv is what’s stopping me
I used to watch tnt just for inside the nba and I knew it had games every Tuesday and Thursday. I’d check espn on Wednesday and Friday. Now I literally have no idea if there’s any game on anywhere ever, even though I guess there’s like 8 games a night or whatever.
It’s flipped me from a consistent fan to a who gives a flying a fuck. It’s not worth the effort.
Weird I watch more this year because there’s more national games, essentially one every night, it’s awesome
this is me. I want to watch Inside but do not know when it is on. I’m not going to google weekly to find out. I have watched less games this year and won’t be renewing LP.
I haven’t paid for an NBA game since college in 2014. If there was some local company that broadcast Pacers games that funded local workers or the org I would give them my left nut, but fuck Bally sports.
But Adam Silver says it’s a highlight league and you can just watch the highlights after the game.
Amazon and Peacock have some good to great coverage teams but the inaccessibility for normal people to watch games is just sad for the product. Having to explain to my parents why they cant watch a Spurs game because it’s on some Peacock app is so dumb.
Edit: Apparently I’m wrong since more than half the US has Amazon prime and more games are on there. Look, I personally have NO issues watching games but I know people who do have those issues, and not just my parents. I’d love for all local games to be broadcast locally for free. Who wouldn’t want more of that.
I don’t think its necessary to call people morons or judge them for not wanting to navigate through apps. Why are more people defending billion dollar corporations than fellow citizens. Smh …
fwiw, the latest NBC Peacock coverage of Spurs-Pistons was garbage
they split up the announcers across the court, camera angles kept changing in weird ways, and for some strange reason, they kept cutting to people just sitting on the bench for long periods of time, all while the game was happening
but amazon tbh has been killing it
Amazing showing stats and shit. I forget what game it was but players stats popped up and I was like, oh that’s dope. But honestly nba needs to figure this shit out
That’s peacock performance view - it makes the games look like you watching somebody play 2k
Problem is Amazon already has too much influence.
Either you were watching an alt cast or you were watching an illegal stream, because none of that happened on the main stream on Peacock
I legit watched 75-80% of our games between 2012-2015 back when we were local on Fox. I can’t watch shit now unless we’re on national tv
i live 3 hours from Charlotte. the only hornets game I’m going to be able to watch this year legally is the Cleveland game last month. the nba wants me to care about this league because of why again?
Peacock spent all that money to acquire all of these rights and still doesn’t accounts for 2% of streaming numbers. Amazon at least had a built in user base before they snatched up all of these rights. If the NBA cared about anything besides the number on the contract they’d make them wait to acquire rights.
I mean dog, pretty much everyone has prime. That’s better than TNT or ESPN for me
Amazon and Peacock have some good to great coverage teams but the inaccessability for normal people to watch games is just sad for the product
A quick google search tells me that ~200M Americans have Amazon Prime, while ~66-68M Americans have cable TV
The idea that TNT is more accessible for most/average Americans than Prime Video is just outdated and wrong TBH
There was a spot on the Spur’s calendar recently where, in a 8 game block, you needed 6 different paid streaming services to watch. I’m glad the coverage is improving but the level of fragmentation is crazy. I guess the good thing is, out of frustration, I learned how to play some of those questionably legal streams on my TV just as easily as accessing Prime, FanDuel, ESPN or peacock.
Somehow this isn’t a problem for the NFL though. They can stream every SNF game on Netflix and they would still dominate
Forget your parents, I can never find the damn games and post shows on Prime. The app sucks so hard compared to YouTube TV.
Haha ok I thought i was crazy for a min.
he’s kinda right though because i remember when you could just flip on the tv and catch a game without juggling three subscriptions, now it feels like watching your team requires a treasure map 😭
Great way to phrase it!
Yeah honestly, that’s what I’ve noticed about my own viewing habits. With subscriptions, I don’t really passively watch my television anymore. When I had cable, I was much more inclined to check out the cable guide and flip until I found something, even if it wasn’t what I originally turned the TV on for. Often, that meant that I’d land on ESPN, TNT, or Fox Sports Detroit watching basketball or whatever other sports might be on.
In the streaming era, I find I generally only fire up an app if I’m going out of my way to watch a specific movie or sporting event I’m very intentionally seeking out. And even in the case of the latter, it’s a coin flip for me. Like tonight, I asked my phone where I could watch the Pistons and it said ESPN. I don’t have ESPN, so I had to find other means to see the game. In the cable era, I didn’t have to really play those sort of games when trying to watch the Pistons. The games were just on.
The app era has definitely killed other sports for me though, which almost all were passive viewing options for me before. With cable, I liked stumbling into a Red Wings game but knowing I have to seek them out, it no longer meets the threshold of effort I wish to put in, which I know sounds incredibly lazy but remains a reality nonetheless.
I feel the same way but when you phrase it like this it does seem incredibly lazy. But I’m also not a big enough fan to keep up with every single game, sometimes I don’t even realize when/where I can watch my team play, and just do something else without even thinking about it. In the nfl at least I always know the day and time my team plays at and I can always catch regular games even if not my teams on Fox and cbs in the background on a lazy Sunday
I have Hulu, Netflix, prime, and peacock. Yet I can’t watch the pacers without paying for even more
KJZZ televises all the non nationally televised Jazz games locally, it’s really nice. Sucks that more teams don’t do that.
I have pretty much every streaming service for the time being (many through verizon deal) and I can’t watch Hornets or Hurricanes games without another $30/mo for Fanduel TV.
I still watch them, somehow.
This sport will never scale with casual viewers under this model. They expect people to care about the big market nationally televised teams but most people would rather check out their home team if they’re just casually looking for something to watch.
Rare, Chuck take that I agree with.
In fairness to Chuck, he’s still good at thinking about the average person despite being incredibly rich.
Living in Oregon as a Blazer fan I pay for a subscription to the whole league, as well as an entirely separate subscription just for the blazers. It’s around $200 annually, I don’t even want to look.
I also am paying for a peacock (deleted after the Olympics ended), Amazon Prime, as well as YouTube TV (only once the postseason starts for YTTV).
And despite all of that, I am still completely blocked out from seeing any game from GSW, SAC, and Utah. Unless they are playing my blazers or on national tv, I literally do not get to watch those teams, despite basically writing the nba a blank check and signing up for everything that I’m allowed to.
Get your shit together Silver. Fuck you. Stop making it impossible for anyone in any generation to watch your league.
Vote with your dollars my friend. You giving him your money is functionally an approval. The only way they change is if you hit their pockets.
I gave up trying to watch the trailblazers. I just watch what comes over r ripcity clips. It sucks.
For us international viewers, I find it to be an absolute nightmare however the high seas make it all possible
It’s definitely very accessible for international viewers who purchase league pass, since there is no blackouts and you get all games in the same place (plus the condensed or possession only replays post game are so good for catching up on games you missed without the fluff)
HOWEVER, it’s definitely not affordable, which would then discredit it’s accessibility. I’m pretty sure it’s like $300AUD for a year of the service here. I get that’s not out of the ordinary for other sports services either but it’s a little ridiculous, considering they don’t have new content year round once the season ends either.
They should put all games in 1 platform. And everyone knows where it is. This split between 3-4 platforms isn’t good
No 1 network is going to pay $7B for rights. The way they got up to the 7B number is by splitting between networks
They also wouldn’t run that many games. It’d take up a 4pm to 12am tv slot every day of the week and they still wouldn’t be able to show all the games
It is. 🏴☠️
That wouldn’t maximize revenue so the owners and players union would never agree to it. Fans are never the priority and are always an afterthought.
I actually think it’s better this year than before. The games on NBC actually give us more chances to catch national games over the air. I think Amazon Prime is a lot more accessible streaming service because of its ties to other stuff.
Before, it was ESPN and TNT until the playoffs when ABC enters the mix. I didn’t have cable, I couldn’t watch those channels. Now, I catch more national games through NBC and the occasional ABC game. Then, I have Prime.
I watched the most when I had league pass, but short of that, I’m watching more national games than before.
It’s way better for national tv then its been in years. Folks just won’t accept that. It’s only 3 streaming services, peacock, espn and prime. And nbc and abc are still over the air. The tv ratings also show this. More people watching now then they have in years.
This is somewhat of a boomer take especially when cable is literally is dying. Putting the nba more on cable would be a terrible idea
Some people just want to turn on TV and watch basketball.
Seriously, it’s kind of a luddite take for some people to be like, HOW DO I FIND THE GAMES? It’s like, bro just Google it like you Google everything else you have a question about. I get that the new setup isn’t optimal if you’re the sort of person who’s got to have every single game every night forever, but the people who shout about that are not remotely representative of the average fan. The average fan is (according to the ratings, which are up 30% for the season) just stoked to have easy access to games on the platforms they already have.
I have no idea how tv works now or how to get what I want to watch. I used to be able to watch almost everything on tv by changing the channels during commercials.
I don’t even watch games anymore. I just follow reddit and watch highlights on YouTube. I miss watching games.
It isn’t like ESPN has helped matters at all with the Inside the NBA schedule.
Keep it up, NBA is gonna go the way of boxing
Fax
I feel like the games are more accessible this season than prior seasons?
Maybe it’s just me. But the Peackock and Prime stuff has been on point. The ESPN deals are bad though.
It’s been 100% better for me! Last year I could watch maybe 1 game a week. Now I watch 4-5 games a week as I don’t do cable streaming services like fubo, etc. So peacock and prime have been clutch!
No lies told
I consume the nba like I do the mlb, I watch a lot of my own team’s games and rarely any national ones. I thought most fans did the same but I guess not based on these replies
The number of people who own cable packages has been steadily declining for over a decade. Why am I gunna spend $30 a month for a bunch of bullshit channels I don’t want to watch, all of them flooded with commercials, just to watch my teams games when I can google them for free?
Maybe I just take my tech savyness for granted, but is it REALLY that hard to find the games now? Having to find out what cable package you needed to be subscribed to (and then trying to cancel it in the offseason) was infinitely more difficult.
easiest its been to watch games in years.
There’s two ways to look at it. I guess if you’re a super fan, it is preferable to have all the games on one network. Or at least the plurality. But for a casual, I suspect it’s nice they don’t have to go out of their way to find a network, they’ll be able to catch a game on their streaming service generally.
Only downside with the latter is every now and then it’s the Pacers vs Nets, and it’s time to sail the seas for a better way to spend two hours.
Chuck for commish. He’s also sometimes abhorrently wrong, but I think he’s honestly got some good ideas for the league and isn’t scared to voice his opinions in front of advertisers. Whereas Silver will always give the politically correct, well thought out answers.
No, the biggest problem is that teams are not trying their best. Compare the competitiveness of regular-season NBA to college basketball. It’s like night and day. Most teams and players just casually stroll through the season and find no incentive to try their best. That’s not including the 8-9 teams that are trying to tank.
Thanks Charles! Very true. It’s a mogul’s chore up ask Google who has nba games tonight hoping I have access. Bummer!
Charles being his usual based self. America’s sweetheart
So jerry tube isn’t good for the game?
Maybe this is right, but if you actually want to watch a game and you can’t figure it out you’re just a moron.
I agree with Chuck but aren’t ratings up substantially over last year?
Is this video AI? Because his voice doesn’t match.
Also, we have access to all the sporting events in the world, all in one place. You just gotta where to look
And none of it is on local channels (at least for the Bucks.) I have to have Fanduel, Hulu (or Cable), Prime, and Peacock subscriptions just to watch my local team? Fuck that.
In Denver you need Altitude+, League Pass, ESPN, Prime, Peacock, and an OTA Antenna setup. As a result I pirate most games. Wouldn’t it be better to just put all games on ABC/NBC/CBS so we could pick them all up OTA and watch the commercials?
Why would I ever pay $200 dollars a year for a bullshit cable package I don’t fuckin want when I can google the games for free… If you’re gunna make it both extremely difficult and extremely expensive, I’m going to take the free route every single time.
I think it’s actually easier now given that so many people already had Amazon prime. Still could be easier to get more games easy
I think many people are capable of spelling streameast /s
Adam Silver needs to go the dude has done what these shitty CEO’s are taught, put profits before anything, maximise short term gain by any means necessary
Having WGN in the 90s was a blessing lol.
Absolutely. It used to be TNT for tues and thurs, espn for Wednesday and Friday and the weekend, and NBATV Monday if you really needed to watch a game Monday night. Now I have no idea except I know Sunday night on NBC (good branding).
It’s not that difficult to look at your teams schedule to see where games are being televised.
And regardless of streaming services I’ve watched more games this season than the past 10 because there’s more games on free abc and free nbc, plus I had prime already.
I… disagree? Charles’ argument isn’t the splitting of games across networks but rather that it’s impossible to tell where a game is? And the NBA app and ESPN app both make that easy, imo. Now whether or not people have the service they need to watch the game is a different matter, altogether.
Short sighted short term profits over long term growth and sustainability…. Modern US Corporate playbook.
The day they decide to ditch their archaic and severely outdated policies and contracts so that I can pay a reasonable amount to watch the one team I follow then I’ll stop pirating.
Until then, I will continue to pirate.
It’s truly fucking abysmal. Peacock, Amazon, fanduel, espn. Absolutely unacceptable. I am a season ticket holder so I get nba tv, but have to sub to fanduel and Amazon and still miss a bunch of games. I sail the seas for the rest.
The games are way easier to find now. And there’s way more games on throughout the week without needing to have league pass. Chuck just mad they’re buried on espn (the worst of the streaming options.)
With the recent new studios picking up games, it’s definitely a bit easier now. It’s treated just like any other live streaming program, the way it’s supposed to be done.
Except ESPN, they still suck ass
Taking games off ESPN would help. They’re a premium cable channel and they have the worst presentation of any NBA broadcaster. Games on NBC have been great. I like the broadcast team on Amazon but that’s another expensive service. More games over the air and get rid of blackouts (League Pass would be worth it then). It’s that simple.
Knowing what service games are on is a simple Internet search though so I don’t understand that criticism. It’s right there on the NBA website even.
I think this narrative was probably true early in the season with the new broadcast partners, but not anymore. Yes, TNT was dropped, but they added multiple games every week to NBC and Prime, both of which are in many more homes than TNT. Feels like since the All Star Break, there’s been a double header on some major service or network every night of the week.
Bring back OTA’s man. Wouldn’t be a bad idea as I remember the KCAL days
Only watched one Pelicans game this season because of this. My grandpa is upset he can’t watch them either. 92 years old but still tries to watch every game. Just couldn’t do it this season and last season. His memory is getting worse, (not as bad as my grandma (dementia)), so I have to remind him every-time about the subscriptions and why we can’t watch Pelican games on regular Tv anymore. It definitely sucks, always enjoyed watching and talking about the Pelicans with him. Now I just update if they win or not or how the players are doing. Good thing we are more football fans than basketball, since we have the Saints and LSU. However I really enjoy watching basketball just couldn’t do it the past two seasons because of the NBA.
It’s hard to watch them on TV, it’s not hard to watch them on the computer… because, y’know, piracy. It is crazy that they’re spread out over so many different platforms now though. I find myself never sitting in the front room on the couch watching games anymore, which in & of itself, it downright weird. Like I’ve not had a buddy over to watch a game in years because what are we going to do, huddle around the computer?
I’m Canadian. It’s funny we have that problem with Hockey with local blackouts and people not able to watch the games they want.
We have plenty of NBA games on nightly.
I don’t entirely disagree, but also… the ratings are up. So somehow fans are finding games better than before.
Ahoy me hearties 🏴☠️
I can find them, that’s not my issue. It’s just too damn expensive to have all these streams
is this actually true? they’re all just on league pass
Back when money was tight, I had no choice but to sail the high seas.
When I’ve watched more browns games this past season than Cavs games, you it’s fucked up.
Shit I can tell you one website where they all at 🤣, LeBron knows where it is too
Chuck needs to get fat again
Adam Silver’s gonna get Charles Barkley clapped if Charles keeps talking bad about Adam’s business decisions.
Blacking on your assigned “home market” team on league pass sucks.
I get the national games being blacked out, just let us have our home market games. Fuck the RSNs.
Honestly, if they want people to go out more, maybe give ticket discounts if you own league pass
Watching streams online is so easy.
How did steam succeed when game piracy is so rampant? Simple. They made it accessible, convenient, and cheap with constant sales to get games in the hands of consumers.
People that have no intention to pay are never gonna pay, but a lot of people just dont wanna jump through hoops and juggle different services to watch a simple thing like nba. We also dont wanna pay out the nose for such a thing.
Illegal streams aren’t perfect a lot of the time, but the sheer ease of use and quality most of the time makes it redundant to pay these companies anything to simply stream nba or whatever sport you wanna watch.
The league will continue to do what the “fans” will pay for
It’s TV Guide’s time for the unseen comeback. Most nights I’m searching apps to figure out who the hell is playing and if I can even watch.
I’m in the camp of there are already too many damn NBA games on all week so you won’t find much sympathy here. Also been a league pass subscriber for nearly 20 years.
The big screw up here is local blackouts. I live in NJ and couldn’t watch any Knicks or Sixers games for years because of local carrier disputes and being in the Philly “market” for NBA purposes but not Xfinity package purposes.
In Oregon and would love to watch the trailblazers, but went down the rabbit hole a couple of months ago and just gave up.
It’s easy to find games 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Screw this non sense- sail away!
If you can’t get your game, pirate it. It is the natural order of things:
Corporate Greed —> Piracy —> Democratized Access —> Corporate Greed
I totally agree, I’ve sailed the high seas for years (or watched the game at my local bar, but being sober complicates that) bought league pass this year, didnt realize I couldn’t watch any of my teams home games? Like ugh
Nah it ain’t 🏴☠️
I got Sling to watch games. Also have Amazon and Netflix. I search regularly and almost never find a game I can actually watch. I’m giving up.
I have not not watched a game on an illegal streaming site since 2015.
Chuck is right on this one.
However, I see people saying to “just get LP”.
That’s not the point. LP and all these subscription services captures the hardcore fan.
I don’t have stats to back it up, but it’s the casual fan that they are worried about losing with this setup.
I used to be a big LP guy, but not anymore. If a game is on free tv, I watch. If not, oh well.
By having the majority of your games on a paid subscription, you eventually will have people just completely skip your product. This leads to other sports rising and interest in your own league dwindling. Less interest = less ticket sales, less merch sales, less of an ability to charge premiums for commercials if no one is watching.
Sorry, I just can’t afford all of these subscriptions.
The disservice, Chuck, is the rampant shit talking you and your fellow talking heads have engaged in for years denigrating the league and its players
Everything runs smoother on YouTube than Amazon. It’s a joke how this tv deal played out.
Get right Chuck
Yeah but I thank them because the NBA has taught me how to pirate so well that it’s as easy as finding games back in the day on cable.
What kinda weight loss is Chuck on….. my guy looks horribly different 😬
Every team should have an affordable and easy way to go arch games for everyone in their state.
Every local fan should be able to watch the game for free. For people outside of the area, there should several options to watch them.
it’s so easy to watch the games for us international fans. 120 bucks and i can see every single game of any team all year long, playoffs included
you guys and barkley need to understand that this is a global game
Facts. I share league pass with a homie in PR and he can watch all the games. Im in LA and can’t watch the 2 local teams. Its fucking ridiculous.
“find” has little to do with it. Paying for all the streaming platforms sports leagues like to sprinkle their offerings between for their enrichment is the issue. Sports have become the hook, for your subscription $’s. If you thought those Thursday night games on Amazon 6 years ago weren’t a problem, welcome to the future you didn’t see coming.
What is he talking about?? You only need League Pass, Peacock, Prime, NBC, ESPN, FanDuel, Gotham Sports, CHSN, MSG Network, Zeebo, Altitude+, and Sportsnet+.
I really don’t watch anymore since I have no idea if I can watch the trams I wanna watch … blackouts … gotta have like 6 subscriptions to watch any game …. And still can’t watch most games I want to watch
I’m pretty much an NBA playoff watcher mostly, but I’d have no idea where to even find the games at this point.
This is the fewest games I’ve watched all year because it’s hard to know when other games are on if I don’t actively look
I can’t watch any of the teams I follow due to blackouts. Pay for the cable channel but can’t watch any games still lol. I stopped caring as much. I pay for too many subscriptions to have intentional blackouts like that.
i love being able to see (just about) every Suns game over the air via antenna. national game or not, its on the antenna.
the only time theyre not on the antenna is when its an Apple exclusive
I remember paying for games on PPV during Chucks era. Same shit different generation.
I only care about the playoffs now anyway
Im sorry but nah. I google “NBA games today” daily, it takes 15 seconds to see what games are being played, at what time, and what service/channel. It’s easier than ever.
And a sub to Prime and Peacock is like 15% or less of the cost of the cable package you’d need previously to get ESPN and TNT. I’d sub to Jazz+ as well if my team was worth watching at the moment.
I don’t mind missing the ESPN games because I don’t have to hear the worst “analysts” in tv history talk about a game that they clearly aren’t even watching, being played by dudes who’s names they don’t even know.
The ratings are up for a reason. This is just an old man yelling at clouds.
Yo ho ho
Trying to watch a game at a bar is now a nightmare. Usually, they know to turn the channel to find something but now you have to hope they have the right subscription or if it’s not blacked out.
I wanna be able to watch Kings/Jazz legally if I want to!
man shoutout to PTI, love these guys
Seattle Supersonics!
Ratings are up across the board?