Silver: My Comments About Basketball Highlights Were ‘Misconstrued’

NBA commissioner Adam Silver faced scrutiny last week after referring to basketball as a “highlights-based” sport. At the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit on Tuesday, he clarified his statement, saying it was “misconstrued.”

Silver insisted that his comments were meant to label highlights as “additive” to the game. He added that the league office constantly talks about how to ensure that fans who watch highlights can be converted into fans who watch the live games.

“I accept that what I said was misconstrued. I certainly did not intend it that way. I think it’s a positive thing that there’s so many highlights in every game. But, to completely clarify, those are highlights that ideally we’d like people to consume live, not after the fact,” Silver said.

Silver’s original comments were made on Sept. 10 following the NBA’s Board of Governors meeting.

“For the league, there’s a huge amount of our content that people can essentially consume for free. This is very much a highlights-based sport. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, you name it … there’s an enormous amount of content out there,” Silver said last week.

He pointed out Tuesday that his answer was in response to a question about the impact of social media on the viewership behavior of younger fans, particularly given the NBA’s new media deal.  

The question, which came from the New York Times reporter Tania Ganguli, was, in part: “I know that there are other points of entry for fans to interact with the NBA. There’s social media, and [for] a lot of younger fans, that is how they’re experiencing the sport. I wonder how much you think about that and how that will shape the next generation of fans.”

The NBA’s 11-year, $77 billion deal with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon adds national games, but also additional broadcasters and streaming services that could make it more difficult—and expensive—for fans to watch all the live games.