Adam Silver Releases Bold Statement On LeBron James Leaving East

The NBA’s TV ratings have dropped this offseason, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver mentioned LeBron James’ decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers.

“Face it, LeBron is one of the biggest stars in the world, and he also played in the East.

“And so, the reason I look a little bit tired is a lot of our games are in the West, and it’s late at night. And I recognize most people choose to go to sleep at a reasonable time. And so, from a rating standpoint, not having LeBron in the playoffs, not having him in the East, has clearly impacted ratings.

“Fifty percent of television households in this country are in the Eastern time zone. And so if your West Coast games start at 10:30 at night in the East, you’re invariably going to lose a lot of viewers around 11, 11:30. I mean, you can just chart it. You see how many television households turn off around 11:15, 11:30 at night, just because people have to get up for work in the morning.

“I mean, it is something we can address. We’re talking about it. I mean, it would obviously be less convenient to those fans on the West Coast if we played even earlier. I mean, just think about people getting to those arenas after work if you start a game at 6 p.m. local time in the West. It’s not the most convenient thing. It’s not as convenient for a television watcher on the West coast, either. But when you look at the league from a national standpoint, it may make sense to play a little bit earlier in the West. And that’s something we’re going to talk to our teams about this summer.”

Silver also mentioned that young people don’t really watch television through conventional methods, adding that the league will try to maximize viewers.

Cross-time-zone games are also a problem that needs to be solved, and the league will even try to appeal to a national audience. In other words, every game has a cross-time-zone element.

There has to be a balance between the timing on the East and the West.