I watched far less than 60% from prior season.... Though the prior season kind of sucked after the trade deadline too. But pair the Comcast price increase, loss of star power without Dame, and injuries or uninspiring play from all the key youth and Id imagine yes it was down 60% or even much more. Now there will certainly be years the team is more entertaining and people tune back in. But as others have said the Blazers are losing out on long term opportunities to get young lifetime fans hooked on the team. That may ultimately cost much more than the whatever X millions root gave over better viewing local TV contract options.
The Seachickens left root with a years left on their contract to make viewership more available, seems they would consider the same for Blazers? I guess as the red headed P/L center satellite for a Seattle based mothership all things start with the home grown first.
the "official" number drop was 49% by the time it was reported to league office. Blame the cable companies! They jacked up the price during a rebuilding era, and fans would rather watch something else. we're talking TOTAL viewership, not local numbers. NBA fans across the globe want to see some action, not a Blazer team that looks confused and struggles in almost every game. Did Portland have any BIG comeback wins this year? I'm pretty sure the team was going down 20-30 real quick, and the bench brigade would chug red bulls and chop some of those blowout deficits to "competitive" final scores. NBA fans hate garbage time stuff. G-League extravaganza is not a selling point.
My $.02. No one can know what another person thought. But when Paul Allen died suddenly most of us were shell shocked. Most of us felt he didn't consider the Blazers just a business, that the team had a place in his heart. And that he wouldn't leave in charge a person who wouldn't carry on. But looking back my unsupported opinion is I underestimated strength of family ties. And apparently Paul relied a lot on Jody, especially when his health declined. Some of the comments made about her taking over were frankly misogynistic. But over the years it seems clear that she doesn't care a lot about the Blazers. It is possible to be a good hands off owner. Appoint a really good GM and let them do their job. That hasn't happened. In what other business would a manager whose work product kept getting worse stay? It is possible she wants to establish her own legacy and not just be Paul Allen's sister. If she doesn't care about the Blazers she should sell. I hope I am making sense, this is a bit more stream of consciousness than usual for me.
The thing is the quality of an NBA owner is in relation to the other 29 franchises. Even if Jody is fine as the executor of an art collection or a charity grant or whatever that doesn't mean she's going to do well leading an NBA team. For decades the Blazers always had one of the NBAs owners that was at the tops of the attributes us fans want; a mix of extremely wealthy, willing to throw away millions on his NBA play toy, and also very passionate about the team. Those things are no long the case with Jody and Vulcan/Kolde. There's at least 5-10 owners or ownership groups that are far better than the Blazers in all those regards, and there might be an argument the Blazers are in the bottom 10, bottom 5, or worse of the NBA. When it's a competitive 30 team league we went from having a strength of an owner to a weakness. It doesn't mean Jody is a bad person, evil, uncaring, or unwilling to invest some money in the Blazers. Or whatever other justification some fans put our there. It just means she's not very good compared to a group of extremely wealth Billionaires that normally throw a ton of cash around to try and win.
I know one viewer who quit watching...for the first time in decades. And if they feature Ant-Grant-Ayton next season, that viewer won't return
