On Jan. 18, 2023, Daily Trojan Editor in Chief Stefano Fendrich published the first edition of his column, “The Great Debate.” For four long semesters since — including during a Spring 2024 escapade to Europe — Fendrich has used DailyTrojan.com as a personal diary for any sports-related thought that comes across his mind. From trying to convince fans that USC football would be fine after an embarrassing loss to rival Notre Dame in 2023 (they were not) to lobbying for countless New York Jets to win awards they had no business competing for, “The Great Debate” does not exactly have a perfect track record.

So this semester, now that Fendrich has completed his climb to the very top of the DT hierarchy, I decided it was time to check the man’s power, just a bit. From there, I launched “The Not So Great Debate,” my new column in which I will challenge the “hot” takes presented in “The Great Debate” and hopefully end up on the right side of history more often than not. 

For my column’s first edition, I was hoping for a juicy topic — one on which I could really come out swinging. For example, Fendrich maintains that Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez — arguably an NFL draft bust who was carried by the league’s top defense to a fluky AFC Championship appearance —  had a better rookie campaign in 2009-10 than star Commanders first-year quarterback Jayden Daniels has put together an MVP-worthy turn this year.

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While I would love nothing more than to take a deep dive into Sanchez’s first of just four seasons as an NFL starting quarterback, Fendrich has instead opted to have a lively debate about everyone’s favorite topic — NBA TV ratings. 

As noted in this week’s “The Great Debate” edition, concern is flying among NBA fans about the league’s popularity for a number of reasons. TV ratings were down 19% as of December, and the league’s biggest regular-season showcase, Christmas Day, was completely snatched out from under NBA Commissioner Adam Silver by his NFL counterpart, Roger Goodell.

The first-ever professional football games on Christmas Day reached 65 million viewers in the United States on Netflix, while the NBA’s five contests averaged 5.25 million viewers across ABC platforms, even after counting viewers on ESPN+, Disney+ and any other platform they possibly could count. 

The day’s saving grace for Silver was a thrilling showdown between the Lakers and Warriors. The game’s audience peaked at 8.32 million viewers and marked the best for a regular-season NBA game in five years. 

There’s just one problem. The game served as a reminder of perhaps the biggest issue Silver and Co. face. The league’s two biggest draws remain Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry and Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, who are a combined 76 years old. If the league has a ratings problem now, what will it have when Curry and James, two of the best and most exciting players in NBA history, call it quits?

Now, to be fair, Fendrich’s argument was not that the ratings issue does not exist, but that fans simply should not care. Not only making the case that ratings are a concern for front offices, Fendrich also argued that TV ratings are not the best way to measure engagement anymore, and that the NBA has a very strong presence on social media. 

This may be true, but that just is not how I want the next generation of basketball fans to interact with the league. I have closely followed the career of professional darts player Stephen Bunting on TikTok, but I would hate to see the NBA reduced to that level of engagement. 

I may never beat the feeling of staying up way past my bedtime on Feb. 27, 2016, and witnessing Curry’s famous game-winner from nearly half-court, the culmination of the Warriors’ breathtaking regular-season battle with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder. I will never forget that game, and watching the shot on Instagram Reels the next day just would not have hit the same. 

The ratings problem is not only one worth solving, but it’s one that is solvable. After the MLB made recent rule changes to shorten games by removing dead time and adding more base-running action, the league saw double-digit growth among viewers aged 18-34 on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball (12%), Fox Sports (24%) and MLB Network (36%). 

These are huge numbers that were achieved with pretty quick fixes, and it’s possible for the NBA too. Stop calling fouls every time a big name drives to the paint. Do a better job marketing young stars. Air a halftime show where the “analysts” actually talk about basketball and know the names of players that aren’t all-stars.

There are a variety of paths for the NBA to take, and I think they are all worth exploring to ensure the results of the 2035 NBA Finals aren’t slowly revealed through a TikTok storytime. 

Henry Mode is a sophomore opposing takes offered in Stefano Fendrich’s column “The Great Debate.” Mode’s column, “The Not So Great Debate,” typically runs every other Monday, and he is a sports editor at the Daily Trojan.