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Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo, two of the biggest genuine NBA fans in sports media, took some shots at Clay Travis and his website OutKick for their poorly-aged takes regarding the NBA’s ratings. OutKick has been gloating over the NBA’s declining ratings to such an extent that it obviously caught the attention of Simmons and Russillo.
On the latest episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, in which they discussed the first round NBA playoff games that took place during the weekend of April 26, Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo cracked jokes at the expense of OutKick writers Clay Travis and Bobby Burack.
The pair noted that the duo have seemingly gone silent on the NBA’s ratings now that they’ve rebounded from an early-season slump. As Awful Announcing puts it, “the league’s ratings rebounded during the second half of the regular season, finishing down a mere 2% versus last year,” adding that “this decline is far less than the percentage of homes that cut the cord in that same period, suggesting the NBA ‘beat the spread’ in some sense.”
Viewership has remained strong at the start of the postseason, too, with the NBA having its largest opening playoff round audience in 25 years, increasing viewership by 18% versus last year.
“This is one of the best 24-hour stretches the league’s had in a while,” Simmons said.
“Clay Travis, how about tweeting about the ratings?” Russillo sarcastically retorted.
“Get Bobby Burack on that one!” Simmons added.
Russillo also added that he agrees that the NBA’s social messaging on its jerseys during the 2020 summer season was a silly idea, using “Group Economics” as his punchline, thus implying that despite that, he got over it and hasn’t been fixated with the league’s failure ever since.
Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo EVISCERATE NBA ratings doomers Clay Travis and Bobby Burack pic.twitter.com/eyQBbYuURL
— The r/BillSimmons Podcast (@rBillSimmonsPod) April 28, 2025
To truly comprehend what’s actually going on here, you first need to understand why OutKick roots for the NBA to fail and jumps at every opportunity to report on its sagging ratings: they believe the NBA is ‘woke,’ which is a word that’s largely lost any legitimate meaning.
Whenever LeBron James, particularly around the George Floyd protests in 2020, would speak about racial injustice, the general response from OutKick and liked-minded individuals was, “Well, what about the atrocities in China?! You sell sneakers in China! Hypocrite!” And ever since then, it’s been a crusade to see the NBA fail.
This isn’t an assumption on my end, either: in a December 2024 article about the league’s ratings, there’s an image of LeBron kneeling in protest during the 2020 tournament in Orlando despite the fact that the photograph has nothing to do with the content of the article.
Granted, the NBA’s product is undeniably worse than it was a decade ago, with basketball minds far smarter than I pointing to the increase in 3-point shots and the way that’s eroded the fundamentals on the game. The “load management” issue is also a scourge upon the league, and the season itself is perhaps too long, thus diluting the importance of the games.
But that’s not why OutKick‘s obsessed with their ratings. On their list of issues with the league it being “too political” came to mind first.
“The list of issues is lengthy. The league is too political, the regular season hardly matters, players don’t take games seriously, small market teams struggle to compete, star power is lacking, and games feel more like 3-point shooting contests than actual basketball games.”
So far during the first round 2025 NBA Playoffs, about 5 million people are tuning into every game, with either 3 or 4 games being played per day. To put that number in perspective, OutKick‘s holy grail sport of golf, The Masters, had 12.7 million people tune into its final round.