NBA commissioner Adam Silver came out and said there’s no data to back the idea that league ratings were down due to an increase in social justice messages.
The 2019-20 NBA campaign turned out to be a memorable one, with the Los Angeles Lakers ending things with an NBA Finals victory. Another title for LeBron James, his first with Los Angeles? You better believe it.
As great as that was to see, much was made because the NBA’s ratings were down this year. Countless folks out there claimed it was because of the Black Lives Matter movement the league participated in across the board.
However, that simply was not the case. Commissioner Adam Silver said there’s absolutely no data whatsoever to back up those claims.
The Black Lives Matter support had no impact on the NBA ratings taking a bit of a dive this past season
In an exclusive interview with Bomani Jones and GQ, Silver reiterated that the increase in social justice messaging didn’t have a negative impact on the ratings. Instead, Silver thinks it brought in new fans to the NBA.
“Now, some people might suggest that the words Black Lives Matter are causing massive amounts of people to tune out the NBA,” Silver told Jones. “There’s absolutely no data to support that. And in fact, as I said, there’s no doubt there are some people—and whether or not they were truly our fans to begin with is unclear—who have become further engaged with the league because they believe in our players and they believe in the positions they’ve taken, even if they don’t agree with everything they say. They respect their right to speak out on issues that are important to them.”
There are multiple factors that played a role in the NBA’s ratings fall this past season. At the top of the list has to be the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused so much uncertainty not just in the United States but also all over the world.
Anyone claiming that Black Lives Matter is responsible for the NBA losing fans is simply misinformed, Silver made that much known.