NBA Shakes Up Schedule In Effort To Grow Audience
At a time when TV viewers are getting older and younger audiences are harder to reach, creative approaches like the NBA's new in-season tournament become one of the last remaining cards for leagues to play — especially in light of how staggeringly high live sports rights fees are at this point.
- The chart below, from Tubular Labs, shows a monthly look at unique U.S. viewers aged 13-to-24 for the four major leagues across Facebook and YouTube. Even at their peak, those numbers are not very high (for instance, fewer than 10 million unique people watched the NFL in February, its best month).
- An inability to attract a large number of young viewers on those platforms is not indicative of league-specific failures, as much as a struggle for sports to find solid footing with young audiences. For reference, the figures above account for less than 20% of each league’s monthly unique viewers in many cases.
- The NFL and NBA are the only U.S. sports leagues to create any significant separation throughout the calendar year when it comes to appealing YouTube and Facebook content for younger viewers.
