Despite constant handwringing from the national punditry about the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) ratings, a post-Christmas bump has left the league at an only marginal deficit to its previous season. True, the ratings have plummeted in the last decade-plus — four out of five of the lowest-rated finals of the last three decades occurring in these last four years — but these trends are not unique to the NBA.

Yet this hasn’t stopped a full-throated league audit, with the media class singling out their favorite reasons as to why the league’s numbers aren’t performing more favorably. Perhaps the loudest iteration belongs to right-wing figures like Clay Travis, who claim the league is simply too political and, specifically, too woke. This of course is a reference to George Floyd’s murder five years ago, where in lieu of spearheading a work stoppage to show solidarity with the victims of racialized police brutality, the players union allowed itself to be swayed back onto the court by league officials and former president Barack Obama. Who can forget the many league-approved social justice messages on the back of their favorite players’ jerseys that year, bangers like “Listen,” “Vote,” and my personal favorite — “Education Reform.”

Other more mainstream pundits have focused on the league’s dwindling percentage of American-born stars, suggesting US fans don’t connect with the Luka Dončićs and the Giannis Antetokounmpos of the world. This is a strange position, given these foreign-born stars’ fluency in English, which can often serve as an impediment for some non-native speaking athletes’ Q-ratings in internationalized sports.

And finally, there is the analytics griping, exorbitant three-point shooting, defender-legislating, and free agency roulette — all barely valid criticisms served up almost exclusively by former coaches and players. These commentators seem more motivated by a sense of nostalgia for a version of the sport that satisfies feelings of the familiar and bitterness toward basketball modernity.

To the extent that there are indeed real issues causing fans to walk away from their televisions, there do seem to be a few legitimate ones not based in either blanket conservatism, light nativism, or rank old-timerism.

For starters, the nature of sports fandom has undergone quite a shift. With the introduction of new media providing more snackable alternatives to consumers, fifteen-minute condensed-game recaps become more attractive than dedicating two and a half hours to watch your team lose a semi-meaningless game in mid-February. Fans also increasingly prioritize the ancillary parts of the sport, such as player movement, trade rumors, and gossip — all soap operatic elements with the low barrier of entry of only a quick podcast subscription or two.

For years, critics of the league have questioned the heart and professionalism of the athletes. It’s not uncommon to hear fan complaints about how players are spoiled and lazy — particularly when compared to their collegiate counterparts. The relatively recent development of “load management” — where teams sit healthy star players for spot games in the regular season in the hopes they’ll have fresher legs for the postseason — has inflamed these objections, as fans who spend the time and money on a babysitter to go watch LeBron James are left watching Rui Hachimura.

Upstream from these more minor concerns of league play-quality is the NBA’s biggest problem of all: the long-vaunted length of the NBA season. For decades, fans have criticized the bloated regular season schedule, yet any reduction in length could mean, at least in the short term, a financial haircut for league officials and ownership. For context, some calculations have a reduction in even five home games a year costing teams $13.5 million in revenue.

The trend in sports the past several years has been to oppose contraction of any kind. The National Football League (NFL) added to its regular season slate with potentially more to come, while National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) football, basketball, and Major League Baseball (MLB) have all extended their playoff schedules. Even the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has increased the number of fights it puts on each year, with the total increasing by 50 percent since 2012. It appears leagues have caught on to the reality: more televised events mean better leverage to negotiate and land a massive TV deal.

Central revenue, or essentially broadcast rights, is the biggest moneymaker for the biggest leagues. It tops the revenue charts of both the NBA and NFL, accounting for two-thirds of the NFL’s industry-best $18.7 billion in annual revenue, as part of a landmark $110 billion collective deal signed with the likes of NBC, CBS, Fox, Amazon, and ESPN. These TV rights represent the most attractive avenue for growth, as other revenue streams for leagues — sponsorships, seating, local media, concessions, parking, and merchandise — are inherently a more static endeavor.

However, more is not necessarily better. The NBA has been in denial for years about its on-court product, a direct result of players who are chronically sleep-deprived, injured, and without enough time in-season to even practice their sport outside of a few shoot-arounds, walkthroughs, and film sessions. The overwhelming popularity of the NFL and college football in the United States can be at least partially attributed to the fact that teams play only about fifteen games per year, over 90 percent of which are on the same day. You won’t find much, if any, load management or lazy defense in the sport because every play and every game matters — a far cry from the reality of an NBA season. Fans also know when every game is played and can plan their leisure time accordingly, while the NBA scatters its events throughout the work week.

The league should take a longer-term approach, one that both respects the time and money of its fans, as well as both the physical labor and bodies of its athletes. At present, the league is an example of sustained mediocrity, succeeding in part due to peak global demand for live sports programming, unprecedented talent pools, and social media reach, and despite its tacit complicity in wrecking player health and gaslighting a loyal fanbase that is paying more than ever for a fun family night out. Its quantity-over-quality approach resembles a predictable short-term profit maximization model, and if it doesn’t get out of its own way, it risks squandering the reputation of what should be one of the best leagues in the world.