Commish says shift from linear TV is hurting NBA's deliveries of Millennials
Overstuffed with star talent and buttressed by a social media policy that doesn't penalize fans for sharing snackable portions of its in-game content, the NBA is arguably more engaging than it's ever been. But despite boasting one of the youngest fan bases in sports, pro hoops remains as vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the media landscape as any other league.
In an appearance last weekend at the 13th annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver acknowledged that the generational shift away from the dominant linear TV model has put the squeeze on the league's deliveries of Millennials.
"From 2010 to 2018, among 18-to-34-year-oldsand that's our core audience, it's an incredibly attractive young audiencetheir viewership on pay TV is down almost 50 percent," Silver said to his interlocutor, The Ringer's Bill Simmons. "So I think we're going to have to figure this out with ESPN, and with now our new partners at AT&T and WarnerMedia, how the new world looks."