The Problem With Modern Basketball

A new way to structure NBA games.

The NBA, despite being one of the most popular sport leagues in the world, has been facing a growing issue: viewership is down. I don’t exactly know why, but I do have some thoughts.

The Business of the NBA teams

Just like other major sports leagues, NBA teams rely on a variety of revenue sources to stay profitable. Broadly speaking, these include:

• Broadcast Revenue: This is huge, especially with the NBA’s massive national TV deals. The league signed a $24 billion deal with ESPN and TNT back in 2014, and that ensures teams see a chunk of that money. On top of that, teams also negotiate local broadcast rights. The big-market teams like the Lakers pull in much more from their local deals, thanks to their larger fan bases and media markets. In contrast, smaller teams, don’t have the same earning potential from local broadcasts. To help level the playing field, the NBA works to redistribute some of the revenue across the league to make sure smaller-market teams can still compete financially.

• Ticket Sales: Every home game generates revenue for teams through ticket sales. This of course can fluctuate based on the team's performance, star players, and the overall popularity of the team in its local market.

• Merchandise Sales: Jerseys, hats, shoes, and other team-branded products are sold through a mix of official stores, online platforms, and partnerships with retail chains.

• Sponsorships and Partnerships: Major corporations pay to have their logos displayed on uniforms, in arenas, or across digital platforms. These sponsorships can range from the NBA’s official partners to individual team-specific deals.

• Arena Revenue: Revenue generated from events held in the team's home arena, including non-NBA events like concerts, conventions, and other sporting events, also contributes to a team's income.

One more thing worth noting: the luxury tax. To help maintain competitive balance, the NBA imposes a luxury tax on teams that exceed the salary cap. It’s basically a financial penalty for spending too much on players, but some teams are willing to pay it if it gives them a better shot at winning.

Decline in viewership

So, why is NBA viewership dropping, even with some of the most recognizable athletes on the planet? There’s no single answer, but here are a few key factors:

• First off, people just have a lot of options, but limited time.
  With so much entertainment competing for attention, most fans want the best content, fast. And sometimes, NBA just might not be that.

• The rise of highlight culture.
  Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, clips are everywhere. You can catch the best the game has to offer in under 60 seconds. For casual fans, sitting through a 2+ hour game just doesn’t feel necessary anymore.

• Modern NBA games feels repetitive.
  Most teams now play a similar style: launch a ton of threes, switch everything on defense, and optimize for efficiency. It’s smart basketball, but also predictable. When every team plays the same way, the product starts to feel stale.

• Games only feel meaningful in the final minutes.
  A lot of viewers check out early because they feel like nothing truly matters until crunch time. The first three quarters can feel like a warm-up to the real action, which means fewer people stick around, or tune in at all.

• Too many stoppages.
  Between timeouts, fouls, and commercials, the flow of the game is constantly interrupted. It breaks momentum and stretches out the experience, especially for younger fans with shorter attention spans.

• Access to games is frustrating.
  Half the time, fans can’t even watch their own teams without paying for extra streaming packages. Games are split across different networks, and it’s confusing, especially for casual fans.

Some of these issues are structural problems that can hopefully be tweaked, like making content more accessible and streamlining the broadcasting process. Others, like the overemphasis on three-pointers, might just be the “old heads” complaining. One thing I personally keep coming back to, which I think could make the game more exciting, is the scoring system itself.

Tweaking the scoring system

I'm fascinated by how different sports use various scoring methods, and how that shapes overall engagement.

For instance, some sports are strictly time-based, meaning the contest runs for a set duration, and the team with the most points (or runs) at the end wins. Others are organized around sets or rounds, where players or teams must win a certain number of segments to claim victory. There are also hybrid systems that mix elements of both approaches.

Consider these examples:

• Tennis: Matches are scored in sets and games. Players must win a predetermined number of sets (typically best-of-five in Grand Slams or best-of-three in other tournaments). Each set is made up of individual games, and the match is decided by who wins the required number of sets.

• Basketball (Current NBA): The game is strictly time-based. The clock runs for four 12-minute quarters (48 minutes total), and the team with the most points when time expires wins.

• Football: Also a time-based sport, with ninety minutes of action.

• Cricket: In limited-overs formats (like One Day Internationals or T20), matches are based on a set number of overs rather than a time limit. In Test cricket, however, the game is played over five days, and the team that scores the most runs across two innings wins. Or the match can end in a draw if time runs out.

One thing I’ve always admired about tennis is how its scoring structure preserves competitive tension almost indefinitely. Even when a player is down two sets, the match isn’t functionally over because each set is scored independently and there is no cumulative margin that carries over. This creates what you could call reset equity: after every set, the trailing player starts from zero with a fully renewed chance to flip the momentum. The point by point structure also means that there is virtually no garbage time because every point materially affects the pathway to winning the next game, which affects the next set, which affects the match. Tennis uses a kind of modular scoring architecture, where each segment is self contained but consequential, ensuring that the match is not decided early unless one player actually earns it. That is part of what makes big comebacks feel so possible and why viewers stay locked in: mathematically and psychologically, the door is never closed until the very end.

Now, imagine a NBA scoring system that blends elements of time-based and set-based formats, similar to a concept from boxing. Instead of having four quarters, the game could be broken into five 10-minute quarters, with each quarter counting as a set. The team that wins three out of the five sets wins the game. (Or think 7, 7 minute quarters and first to four)

This creates a sense of urgency in each quarter as every minute counts. It’s not about staying in the game. It's about winning that quarter.

This system also mimics the NBA Finals series, where it’s a first-to-four-wins format in a best-of-seven series. But the beauty of this would be that it’s condensed into a single game, keeping the excitement up throughout.

Of course, this kind of change would be a bold move. Very bold. It would drastically alter how stats are compared and how the game is played. For example, moving from 48 minutes to 50 minutes is a small change, but the real shake-up comes in the structure itself. Teams would need to adjust their strategies in real time, and the current metrics (like individual points per game) could become harder to compare. Some games would end in three quarters and others go till five.

Food for thought, I guess?

Thanks for reading!