Dallas Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban points out key reason behind NBA ratings slump

Mark Cuban is no longer calling the shots for the Dallas Mavericks, but he's still a prominent voice in the NBA.

The business mogul was in charge of the Mavs for decades, laying the blueprint of a modern organization and helping them win an NBA championship in 2011.

Recently, he disagreed with the notion of ratings being down. Instead, he thinks the league should go away from traditional metering and focus more on impressions on social media, as younger fans rarely watch whole games.

"I have a 15 year-old son, and he doesn't watch the whole game," Cuban told AOL. "He watches highlights over and over. What did Luka (Doncic) do? What did Kyrie (Irving) do? What did Steph (Curry) do? What did Dereck Lively do? He’ll just watch and it's just tied to the algorithms in our social media, whether it's YouTube, Instagram, Bluesky."

Other major leagues, such as the NFL, don't seem to have that problem. It may be a matter of demographics or league ratings are, in fact, declining.

Caitlin Clark shares her thoughts on the NBA ratings

Everybody has chimed in and shared their two cents on this delicate subject. Recently, Indiana Fever star and Time's 2024 Athlete of the Year Caitlin Clark argued that, according to her friends, the league has gotten softer, which is why the fans aren't as engaged as they used to be:

"Honestly, I feel like the average basketball fan doesn't understand how good NBA players are. And they think it looks like they're not trying. I promise you, they're trying. They're just so good. That's why it looks like they're not trying," Clark told the Kelce brothers. "And obviously the physicality of the league has changed a lot. And I wasn't around when it was like much more physical and maybe people want more like beef and physicality and people think it's gotten soft."

That has been a common complaint on social media for years now, and it may have reached an all-time high point right now.

There might be several factors affecting viewership, however. The fans now have to acquire multiple streaming services to watch all games, and illegal streaming may have also taken a toll on their numbers.

Whatever the case, NBA commissioner Adam Silver will have to think outside of the box to find a solution for this problem, especially after signing a massive TV rights deal.