Gilbert Arenas reveals the real reason why NBA viewership is down: 'It's expensive to watch the games now'

The NBA experienced a significant drop in its TV ratings at the start of the 20224-25 NBA season. The decline isn't new, as the figures were beginning to falter as early as last season's playoffs.

However, the drop has been more alarming after the first couple of weeks of the current campaign, with experts and analysts pointing to different causes. Former Washington Wizards All-Star guard Gilbert Arenas has a simple but logical theory about the NBA's current issue.

"It's expensive to watch games now," said Gil. "They used to be free. So you gotta buy cable for your own teams, and then you have to buy League Pass to get the League Pass stuff."

Watching the NBA is expensive and complicated

The NBA League Pass is the go-to place to watch games today. This direct-to-consumer product enables fans to watch live and on-demand all of the games. However, it is subscription-based and recently increased its annual price by $10 to $109.99 for an entire season or $159.99 for the premium version.

The problem is that it has local blackout restrictions. For example, if you're a Lakers fan, you won't be able to stream their games with League Pass while in or around Los Angeles. 

To watch LeBron and Co, you have to subscribe to Cable TV, which costs around $60+ a month. Meanwhile, cable TV airs only the local team's and nationally-televised games. There are also streaming services like SlingTV, DirecTV Stream, Fubo, Hulu+Live, and Max, but they also come at a price. 

"So what ends up happening is the distribution of games now," he added. "And they're harder to find. That's the problem. We have to find it. It used to be available. The NBA, money-wise, perfect for you, but for the viewers, you're fuc*** us."

Shaq has a different opinion 

Two weeks ago, Los Angeles Lakers Hall of Famer Shaquille O'Neal theorized that the three-point revolution is causing the NBA's TV ratings to plummet. According to "The Diesel," as every team in the league is taking too many three-pointers per game, and fans are getting bored of watching the same thing over and over again.

"I have a theory that it's down because we're looking at the same thing," said O'Neal on a recent episode of The Big Podcast. "Everybody's running the same plays with the damn top-of-the-key dribble handoff. I think everybody's looking at the same thing, and Steph Curry and those guys messed it up."

The "Big Aristotle" has a point, but Arenas' analysis is more interesting. Watching basketball has become costly and tricky, it's not unusual for fans to just watch them via illegal streams that are easy to find online. When they do that, they don't count in the ratings tally. And considering how much one has to pay today to watch the games, that might be one of the big reasons why the ratings are down.