NBA Commissioner Points to Social Media for Fans Upset With Rising Streaming Costs

NBA commissioner Adam Silver put his foot in his mouth during Wednesday’s press conference before the league’s preseason board of governors meetings.

Silver fielded questions relating to Kawhi Leonard’s controversial endorsement deals with the Los Angeles Clippers as well as the NBA’s new broadcast schedule, which will feature games across digital streaming properties such as ESPN, NBC’s Peacock and Amazon’s Prime Video.

Ever since the decline of cable television, we’ve entered into a “cut the cord” streaming world that requires multiple subscriptions to watch shows, movies and live sports. This is not just an issue surrounding the NBA as the NFL and MLB are facing similar challenges about capitalizing earning potential through streaming rights while keeping an affordable product for fans.

Silver was asked about the rising cost to watch NBA games at home and his answer was interesting to say the least.

“There’s a huge amount of our content that people can essentially watch for free,” Silver said. “This is very much a highlight-based sport.”

The commissioner referenced Instagram, TikTok and Twitter as places where fans can view basketball.

That’s all fine and great until you realize that you can’t watch full games on social media, and while basketball certainly has turned into a preferred sport for the younger generation of sports fans, the NBA is alienating a big sector of their audience. Older fans are not going to consume NBA content on social media. They’ll just miss the game if they can’t figure out how to stream it.

While everybody was running with the clip of the commissioner of the NBA practically telling the world to just follow him on Instagram, Silver did note that with the league’s new media deal, they are going from 15 games on broadcast television to 75. This will allow fans to watch more marquee games with only a TV antenna, making basketball much more accessible to anybody with a television.

According to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, the NBA’s national television networks (Amazon, NBC and ESPN) met this week to discuss how they can work together on moving forward with an accessible product for fans.

Watching the NBA on television will certainly look different moving forward. Inside the NBA is moving from Turner Sports and TNT to ESPN, which was confirmed by Shaquille O’Neal this week.

The NBA aired on TNT for 36 seasons. 2025 will certainly be the start of a new era of watching basketball. Just make sure you’re following them on social media, too.