Several Factors Lead to NBA Facing Significant Ratings Drop: TRAINA THOUGHTS

ESPN and TNT have experienced a big rating drop this season. LeBron playing on the West Coast and the Warriors' woes have been two of many factors behind it.

1. While the NFL has enjoyed a ratings resurgence, viewership for the start of the NBA season is becoming a problem for the league.

Via Sports Media Watch, nine nationally televised games have failed to net a million viewers this season. For all of last season, just 19 games failed to draw at least a million viewers.

When any sports experiences a ratings decrease (or increase), it's never for one reason. It's always for multiple reasons.

The league continues to be hurt by LeBron James playing his games on the West Coast, thus shutting out many East Coast viewers because of the late start time. L.A. has the best record in the league, LeBron is playing with Anthony Davis, putting up triple-doubles on a regular basis, but a large part of the country is asleep while he's doing it.

There's also the issue of the Warriors going from the most exciting team in the league to one of the most unwatchable teams in the league.

TNT's Thursday night game is also going against the NFL each week. The network's ratings for those games will most definitely increase once FOX's package ends in mid-December.

Another big problem for the NBA was that there was enormous buzz for Zion Williams this offseason. Viewers were ready to watch Zion and get on the bandwagon. Then he got hurt in the preseason and was expected to miss 6-8 weeks with a knee injury.

Should the NBA be concerned about the dip in ratings? Yes, because the dip has been significant. Is it still too early in the season to panic over the ratings? Yes. Will the ratings go up as the season goes along? Yes. Is the fact that there are no teams to either love or hate a problem for the league? Yes.

You need heroes and you need villains for drama and right now those are lacking in the NBA and a big reason for the lower ratings.

2. A new SI Media Podcast dropped today and it features an interview with FOX Sports' lead college football analyst Joel Klatt.

Topics discussed include why Klatt hates calling blowouts, having to be careful about getting in too deep with X's and O's, what it's like working with Gus Johnson, whether he's competitive with Gary Danielson and Kirk Herbstreit, how he feels about the potential for 9 a.m. kickoffs for Pac-12 games, and much more. 

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher and Google Play.

3. You see a lot of ridiculous things when you're on Twitter and Instagram all day, but Carmelo Anthony easily took the cake Tuesday with this post. It's just a jersey number, for your fifth team, dude.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Carmelo Anthony (@carmeloanthony)

4. Niners defensive back Ronald Blair tore his ACL in the team's loss the Seahawks two weeks ago. Then he had to deal with this craziness.

5. If you saw this tweet from me Tuesday...

... we have an explanation from one of the contestants.

6. Innocent people don't behave this way.

7. RANDOM YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE DAY: The Survivor Series takes place this Sunday, so in honor of the occasion, I'm going to feature vintage videos from the popular WWE pay-per-view the rest of this week. Today, we have The Rock's debut, when he wasn't The Rock, but Rocky Maivia.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on iTunes, Spotify or Stitcher. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.