Fifteen months have passed since the NBA and developer 2K Sports jointly announced an ambitious venture into esports. With the backing of the league and its teams, the move looked to have the most potential for a sports video game to finally achieve success in the growing competitive space.
However, those who surmise that sports games may never find an esports audience have more evidence to back up that belief just one week into the NBA 2K League.
With millions spent to build, operate, produce and promote the league, even the most pessimistic projections would have been an overestimation of the numbers for the first event.
On it's opening day of action, the NBA 2K League peaked at around 13,000 viewers on the live streaming website Twitch, where games are exclusively broadcast. It settled generally in the 7,000-10,000 range. The days that followed resulted in dwindling numbers — dropping as low as 4,000 during some games. The typical crowd ended up being around 6,000-7,000.
Then, on Saturday, the semifinal hovered just above 5,000 spectators. The Finals — with the big money on the line — barely cracked 7,000, and it took a close game in the fourth quarter just to reach that level.
Those numbers are the equivalent of no one watching. It's stunning how random streamers can generate tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of viewers without the enormous investment the NBA and 2K is making. There will be no money to be made from sponsors and advertisers without a much larger crowd actively following the action.
Most alarming is that the viewership eroded from day one and continued to drop throughout the tournament, even as the games took on more importance. That suggests of the few with some curiosity about the competition, a good percentage that tuned in checked out for one reason or another and may never come back.
There was also clearly some bad timing and bad luck with the scheduling. The tournament finals started right as the 76ers vs. Celtics Game 3 was ending regulation on a game-tying shot, and heading into overtime. Many of the other games throughout the tournament were competing with NBA Playoff games.
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Even the most passionate NBA 2K fans are going to choose to watch the real games over the virtual ones. Despite that, the 2K League (at least for now) is clearly not destination programming so those NBA games probably didn't have much, if any, actual effect on the viewership numbers.
The NBA 2K League was never going to be an overnight success. It was always going to take time to build a following. Still, there's no spinning the extremely disappointing early returns.
The production value of the first event was very good, and that at least bodes well for the legitimacy of the league. The games were presented well, and the emotion and interaction of team play made them more compelling to watch than had it been individuals playing 2K18, as expected.
Personal cameras that focused on the players, and wider shots during timeouts and other breaks, filled some of the natural lulls of the games. There was even an argument between teammates of Knicks gaming during one timeout.
Despite pleas from "NBA 2K" veterans for the "2K Cam" (a baseline perspective that follows behind the action), games were presented through the broadcast camera angle. That was the right decision because it looks much like any real game on TV and non-2K players will find that a far more appealing perspective. The other reason behind it, though, is advertising, with sponsors needing to be prominently displayed on the multiple ad boards and the court.
The play was, at times, sloppy and unorganized. As the tournament went on, clear improvement was seen in that area, and over the course of the season, with more experience playing together, it should get immensely better.
It was still a little tough to watch at times as teams failed to execute, particularly in crunch time and out of timeouts. There were occasions when it was fair to ask (and many in the Twitch chat did just that) how these players could ever have been considered among the 102 best in the world. The Grizzlies team struggled even getting the ball up the court in a game against the Mavericks.
For the most part, teams utilized a simple 5-Out offense, which isn't the most appealing thing to watch. That offense seemed to maximize the focus on just a few players while minimizing the effectiveness of the others.
The No. 1 pick in the draft, "Dimez," is a good example of that given how ball-dominant he was. Reminiscent of Russell Westbrook, Dimez carried the Mavericks squad in some games but sunk it in an elimination game when it got blown out. Many of the games played came down to one or two players while the others were largely invisible.
Nearly every possession in the 2K league is 5 out offense 💩 Everybody is literally standing in the exact same spot the entire game. Don't see how viewership gonna grow. Its like a 1v1 or 2v2, no reason for 5 players.
— Chris Smoove (@Chris_Smoove) May 5, 2018
There were also a number of glitches that cost teams points — and potentially games — and the money that would have come with those victories.
In one case, a player got caught in a "complaining" animation after getting stripped, which took away control and allowed the other team to get an easy transition basket. In another, a goaltend was improperly called. Both of those examples took place during the fourth quarter of close contests.
The games were played with six-minute quarters. That proved enough to allow for natural ebbs and flows, and even a tremendous 20-point comeback in the second half. Many of the games went down to the wire, which saved what would have been an otherwise uneventful tournament.
Unfortunately, there were probably too many timeouts called, which disrupted momentum. The way timeouts are called in "NBA 2K18" — instantaneously upon a button press rather than any animation or hesitation to them — was offputting, as they often were called suddenly in unusual moments that looked unnatural.
For an event well over a year in the making, and so meticulously planned, it was surprising to find that the 2K League website didn't feature any results, stats, highlights, rosters or scheduling information.
After a few days, the site now does have some of those things, but it's still quite incomplete. That info should be the bare minimum available and easily accessible.
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The 76ers GC went on to win the Tip-Off Tournament championship over the then-undefeated Blazer5 Gaming, taking home a six-way split for $35,000. The runners-up shared $25,000. A total of $100,000 was awarded in the first tournament.
The actual NBA 2K League 14-game "season" begins May 11. The novelty of the new league will be gone for that, but there's now some familiarity to build upon.
Consistency in the weeks ahead could help generate a following, but the question remains whether the general indifference seen so far can be overcome.
Bryan Wiedey posts sports gaming news and analysis daily at Pastapadre.com, is co-founder of the sports gaming site HitThePass.com, hosts the "Press Row Podcast" and can be reached on Twitter @Pastapadre.