The playoff ratings soared by 3%! Xiao Hua s reforms have really made the NBA without Zhan Duku better?

Old men, I've been crazy about watching the comment section recently - on one side, old fans scolded "NBA now has no confrontation and no taste", and on the other side, the game where the post-00s hold their mobile phones to chase the Thunder and the Pacers, and Alexander's dunk highlights. Is

contradictory? Not contradictory.

The 2025 playoff data shook the face: the average ratings of ABC, ESPN and TNT in the first two rounds were 4.17 million, up 3% from last year, the second highest since 2014; the Thunder and the Nuggets tied the seventh game, with an average of 6.34 million viewers staring at the screen. At 5:15 pm Eastern Time, the peak directly reached 7.63 million - the highest ratings in the United States that day was not a popular American drama, but a life-and-death battle between two "small breaks the ball market".

What's even more outrageous is that the Lakers without James and the Warriors without Curry were eliminated early, and the Nickelodeon G6 still has 5.73 million spectators, 14% more than last year.

At this time, someone asked: "Didn't it mean that the NBA is not good now? Why has the ratings increased? "

I have to ask Adam Xiao Hua, the president who took office in 2014, has been scolded for "only making money" in the past ten years, and has also been praised for "the leader of the league who is the best at doing business." But looking at the data of this year's playoffs, his reform chess is indeed a coincidence.

Let’s talk about the playoffs first. When this thing first came out, the old fans scolded "making up the numbers". What about now? The Trail Blazers were about to play at the end of the season, but as soon as the threshold for the playoffs was set, they gritted their teeth and fought several hard games; the Heat reached the finals from the playoffs in 2023 and became a "dark horse textbook". The data is more realistic: After the play-offs were launched, the ratings of the regular season increased by 12% in the last two weeks, and the key positioning battles were even more serious than the finals - just like in the 2021 Lake Yong play-offs, James and Curry were directly furious. Do you think this can be without the audience?

Look at the midseason championship again. How boring are you in 82 regular season games? But in November, a cup match that suddenly intervened in a "single game determines life and death" with a prize of 500,000 yuan per champion - it may be a "pocket" for top-paid stars, but what about basic-paid players? Equivalent to half a year's salary! Last season, the Lakers Pelicans semi-finals directly hit a new high in the season's non-opening week; the average of 1.51 million viewers in the first mid-season game is worth the money.

There are also the rules for star attendance - only 65 games can compete for MVP and the best team. In the past, the rest of the game became a trend, and broadcasters were in a miserable way: they spent a lot of money to buy broadcast rights, but the stars said they didn’t play, but they didn’t play? Now, the regular season attendance rate of Antetokounmpo and Jokic has increased significantly, and fans are watching the game with confidence, and broadcasters are no longer making trouble.

The most amazing thing is the rules of financial fairness. In the past, the Warriors and the Lakers could have relied on spending money to form the "Galaxy Battleships" but now it has too much overpayment cap? Directly freeze the first round of picks and ban the special cases of middle-class people. After the Nuggets won the championship two years ago, the rotation was broken due to salary pressure; "small breaking teams" like the Thunder have risen rapidly by drafts - the competition is balanced, and every team has hope, who is not happy to watch?

Of course, there are also controversies. For example, the All-Star Game reform has failed and was directly criticized for being "unsightly" this year; the Lakers and Bucks, who won the mid-season championship, all saw their results decline after the game; the playoff schedule is as dense as a train, and the players' risk of injury is high. But you have to admit that Xiao Hua has made the NBA's "cake" bigger and bigger in the past ten years - the 11-year broadcast contract signed with ESPN and Amazon in 2024 directly makes the salary cap rise year by year. It is really not a dream for the stars with an annual salary of 80 million or even 100 million in the next ten years.

Talk back to the matter of "Is the NBA good-looking?"

We have to admit that the current game is indeed different from the 1990s: there are more three-pointers, fewer confrontations, and the data is inflated. But you see the current players - Alexander can break through and shoot, Edwards can fly to the sky and escape, Jokic can support and shoot three-pointers, and there are 7-foot-long players like Wenban Yama who can protect the frame and shoot three-pointers. 20 years ago, this kind of "hexagonal warrior" didn't dare to think about it.

Old fans always miss Jordan and Kobe, but the post-00s look at Alexander and the literary class, just like we looked at James and Durant back then. Times are changing, and basketball is also changing - in the past, players were "no. 1 picks in single subjects", but now they have to be "excellent in general subjects".

What hits me the most is the data from the US media: among young people aged 18-21, 28% regard the NBA as their favorite, surpassing the MLB and the NHL; among the 18-24-year-olds, basketball even tied the No. 1 sports football in the United States.

Look, it’s not that the NBA is not good, but that the people watching the game have changed batch after batch.

Finally, I wanted to say to the old fans: Don’t always hold on to the "scent of the past". The current game may not have the muscle collisions of that year, but there are more smarter tactics, more all-round players, and more exciting suspense. Occasionally, I turned on the TV and saw that I might find Kobe's shadow in Alexander's breakthrough; I could see the magician's inspiration in Jokic's pass.

After all, the most moving thing about basketball is never "how good the past is", but "the next legend is on the way".