“You look at any other show, MLB Network, NFL Network, these shows, our network, we’re positive, we talk about the game. ‘Inside the NBA,’ they just hammer the players.”
Everyone has a take on why the NBA has been lagging in viewership the past couple of seasons as it takes a beating on its NBA Cup broadcasts and stares down a Christmas Day likely dominated by football.
For FS1’s Jason McIntyre, the answer is at a rival network.
Speaking on The Herd ahead of the NBA Cup Final on Dec. 17, McIntyre blamed a specific show for the league’s declining viewership.
Jason McIntyre on ‘The Herd’ earlier today: “This take probably won’t be very popular, but I would argue that ‘Inside the NBA,’ the show that everybody loves, has done more damage to the NBA the last decade than anything.” pic.twitter.com/f21l3vJRyi
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 17, 2024
Not the maligned NBA Countdown on ESPN or a national talk show giving uninformed takes on the league. No, McIntyre believes TNT’s beloved Inside the NBA is at fault here.
“I’m a big NBA guy. This take probably won’t be very popular, but I would argue that Inside the NBA, the show that everybody loves, has done more damage to the NBA the last decade than anything,” McIntyre said.
“Forget about this ‘woke’ and left and right, but Inside the NBA goes on every week and just trashes players, trashes the style of play. You look at any other show, MLB Network, NFL Network, these shows, our network, we’re positive, we talk about the game. Inside the NBA, they just hammer the players. Charles Barkley’s on TV, the Rockets are in the Final Four for the NBA Cup, [it’s] ‘oh the Rockets don’t know how to play basketball, they stink, they don’t know what they’re doing.’ What are you doing? You’re damaging your product on a nightly basis, hammering it.”
As McIntyre referenced, one of the takes on why the NBA is losing viewers is its embrace of social justice messaging, which dates back to the 2020 Bubble. Others, including Inside the NBA panelist Shaquille O’Neal, believe the issue is the three-pointer-heavy style of play. For years, the media has hammered the NBA for its star players missing games, especially when healthy.
Rather than align with any of that, McIntyre took aim at the single most popular non-game property associated with basketball for over two decades.
In fairness to McIntyre, this opinion is quite popular among the more nerdy NBA analysts. They see Barkley and O’Neal rip players like Joel Embiid or Anthony Davis for being soft and inconsistent and believe it is bad for the sport.
That may be true, but Inside the NBA is extraordinarily popular. Millions keep their TVs on for the postgame show, whereas fellow NBA broadcaster ESPN doesn’t even air a postgame show, instead opting for Scott Van Pelt’s SportsCenter to do the job. The NBA on TNT YouTube channel has 2 million subscribers, with recent clips featuring the crew’s reaction to NBA Cup games regularly eclipsing 300,000 views.
For as many people as Inside might alienate, it certainly attracts attention and viewership to the sport as well.
Beyond that, McIntyre using this take to pat himself on the back is pretty rich. For reference, this rant came after a segment in which he and host Colin Cowherd dug through a multitude of issues that they believe plague the NBA. Many days during the NFL season, they ignore the league altogether. Before he departed from the network, Skip Bayless reportedly clashed with FS1 execs over covering the NBA too much.
Is that really the place where, as McIntyre says, is “positive” and “talks about the games”?
The truth is probably right there in McIntyre’s comparison. Inside the NBA may be too negative at times, but it is a regularly scheduled program that at least dedicates itself to covering the ins and outs of a league that flies under the radar elsewhere during its regular season.