Colin Cowherd blasted the National Basketball Association’s ratings collapse because the league has failed to give the fans what they want and compared that epic collapse to what has happened with the Democrat Party.

In a recent broadcast of his The Herd show, Cowherd noted that NBA commissioner Adam Silver has done a good job addressing CTE problems and has “navigated a multitude of cultural changes.” But Silver’s “tinkering” has strayed so far from what the fans want that TV ratings have collapsed.

Cowherd said, “He tinkers, he evolves.” Meanwhile, the NBA ratings are down 48% in the last 12 years, and they have fallen off a cliff this year. Adam Silver’s solution is, “Let’s make the courts brighter.”

Yet he went on to call the NBA “embarrassing.”

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“And I like the NBA, but the All-Star game is now embarrassing, and I think load management is a shame on the league. It is a really bad look for a family of four to go to a game, and Giannis doesn’t play, or Embiid doesn’t play,” he continued.

“I’m sorry. Go ask the Democrats. Be warned. Once you detach from regular people in America, you will pay a price. And it is not easy to run these leagues,” Cowherd warned.

Cowherd went on to praise Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred for hearing the criticisms about baseball and making the changes needed to address those criticisms.

“But in the end, Rob Manfred has television networks going to him saying, we’re not gonna renew, including this one. Make the game faster. He did. The stars got more at-bats. They got rid of the defensive shift, and Fox got great ratings,” Cowherd exclaimed.

“So my take is nobody likes any president. They don’t like Trudeau in Canada. They don’t like whoever’s in the office here. Nobody likes anybody. And commissioners get nothing but crap.”

He concluded by noting that there needs to be a pushback on power in America, but the leagues need to reconnect with their fans or risk losing everything.

“[The NFL] has a connectability to the American Midwest and regular people, and if you start looking at the markets that are winning in this league, it’s tiny Baltimore, Buffalo, Green Bay, Kansas City — connect-ability!” he exclaimed.

As to the NBA, Fadeaway World pointed out that the league’s ratings really have been in freefall.

Ratings have dropped a staggering 48% since 2012, and this season’s numbers show further decline. TNT games average 1.8 million viewers, while ESPN’s ratings are down 28% from last year, sitting at 1.77 million viewers per game. Even high-profile initiatives like the NBA Cup have failed to captivate audiences, with viewership for the tournament dropping 10% compared to its inaugural season.

The site added that ” four of the five lowest-rated Finals in the past 30 years have occurred in the last four seasons, including the 2024 Finals, which averaged only 11.64 million viewers—a far cry from the league’s golden years.”

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