Adam Silver did his best Marie Antoinette impersonation in a recent press conference when asked about streaming packages being increasingly expensive for fans, basically saying, “let them eat highlights.”
Silver is being criticized for telling fans who can’t afford streaming packages that they can watch highlights instread of full games and that the NBA is a “highlight-based sport” with a lot of free content on sites like Tik Tok.
This has been a contentious issue over recent seasons as NBA fans have found it increasingly more difficult and expensive to watch their home team, a problem the NBA continues to ignore, going after illegal streaming sites instead.
I hate to break it to them, but when you shut down one site, 10 more pop up to replace it, so if the NBA wants to get rid of it, they need to treat illegal streaming like a symptom instead of the problem.
NBA fans just want to watch their favorite team
I thought Silver’s comments were way out of touch with fans who are increasingly going away from cable TV and want to be able to watch their team without paying unreasonable fees.
I live outside of the US, so this is less of an issue for me, as I can just buy the NBA League Pass for around $120 and get every single game including all Pistons’ games. This is a reasonable price for someone who watches a lot of NBA as I do. It also allows me to watch replays of games that are on too late for me to watch live, so it’s a great service for those of who don’t live in America.
That’s not the case if you live in the Detroit region, as Pistons’ games are blacked out on League Pass, and that’s true for all local markets. So instead of having one service for everyone, local fans have to turn to cable TV (which no one under 50 has anymore) or whatever streaming service is available. Games are now being spread out on Amazon, YouTube and FanDuel streaming, leaving diehard fans trying to piece together some way to watch all of the games.
It’s not hard to understand why some fans look to illegal streams, and that problem is not going away.
Adam Silver’s comments were out of touch at best, and at worst, will continue to alienate fans who increasingly feel like the league doesn’t even care if they watch the games.