NBA ratings down according to the latest reports, as Donald Trump warns NFL from turning 'Political'

After a long wait, basketball fans were finally able to witness their favourite stars in actions after the NBA resumed in July. However, A break in the action didn't seem to impact the NBA's television ratings. According to the latest numbers, the NBA ratings are down.

MUST-WIN GAME 7! 🏀🍿Scoring machines Donovan Mitchell of the @utahjazz and Jamal Murray of the @nuggets look to push their teams to the Conference Semis tonight at 8:30 PM ET on ABC. pic.twitter.com/uqvNE3bG12

— NBA (@NBA) September 1, 2020

NBA ratings stay down even after resumption of the playoffs

Recently, the NBA players had chosen to boycott the games to protest the Jacob Blake shooting incident. The Milwaukee Bucks started the protest with abandoning the court in the game against the Orlando Magic. Other NBA teams followed suit with not playing their playoff games as per schedule. The NBA had to postpone these games. But even after the restart, NBA ratings stayed down.

According to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, The players' decision to boycott playoff games Wednesday didn't lead to an increase in ratings. He mentioned this unusual trend in his latest article-

"Earlier Saturday evening, Thunder-Rockets Game 5 averaged a 1.3 and 2.14 million — the most-watched game of that series (pending results for Monday’s Game 6)," Ratings and viewership jumped 59% and 80% respectively over Game 4, which aired on a Monday afternoon (0.8, 1.19M)," he wrote.

He continued further-

"Versus the comparable window last year, ratings fell 35% and viewership 30% from Game 1 of a Sixers-Raptors semifinal (1.95, 3.08M). Keep in mind last year’s game aired exclusively on TNT."

A big reason behind NBA ratings being down can be the league holding the competition in August for the first time.

Donald Trump tweets about NBA ratings being down

The USA's President Donald Trump is known to share his opinions on social media platform Twitter. In his latest tweet, the President took a shot at the league saying that the NBA ratings are down because of political involvement. He also mentioned that the people were tired of watching the NBA, and American Football and Baseball should be careful or they will face a similar problem.

People are tired of watching the highly political @NBA. Basketball ratings are WAY down, and they won’t be coming back. I hope football and baseball are watching and learning because the same thing will be happening to them. Stand tall for our Country and our Flag!!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2020

Overall, ratings for the playoffs are down around 20 percent from last season, according to data collected from Real GM and ShowBuzz Daily. SportsBusiness Daily reported in February that ratings for regular-season games had declined by 12 percent since the end of the 2018-19 season.