steven adams thinks gta 6 will tank sports ratings in november

Caught this little nugget from Steven Adams, the Rockets center. He's apparently told people that GTA 6 dropping in November is going to make sports leagues plummet for a bit. Not exactly a hot take when you think about it.

November 19 is a Wednesday. NBA season is in full swing by then, NFL is midseason, college hoops just tipping off. And Rockstar is about to drop the biggest entertainment launch maybe ever. Adams isn't saying anything wild, he's just saying what a lot of us are already planning around.

I keep thinking about the players themselves. These guys travel constantly, sit in hotels, have downtime between shootaround and film. A lot of them grew up on GTA. You know at least a few are gonna be up until 3am in a hotel room trying to figure out how to lose a wanted level in Vice City instead of getting sleep before a back to back.

Ratings will dip too. Not permanently, but that first week? Forget it. People are going to skip a random Tuesday night game to stay home and explore Leonida. The league probably knows it. Adams just said the quiet part out loud.

What I actually like about this is that it's not some marketing exec or analyst. It's a dude who plays professional basketball and is also clearly a fan. He knows his teammates, knows the culture. If he's bringing it up, the locker room chatter about GTA 6 is probably already loud.

I don't think the NBA is going to reschedule anything around a video game, but it's funny to imagine the league office quietly dreading November 19 the way they dread load management discourse. Rockstar doesn't need sports stars to promote the game, but hearing it from Adams just confirms the reach.

Source: Dexerto · Curated content.

There's an old studio term for this. Two blockbusters landing the same weekend, the tracking people say they're cannibalizing the audience. Difference is studios can blink and move their date. The NBA can't. The schedule is the schedule, and November 19 sits right in the middle of it.

The hotel room scenario is what gets me. West Coast road trip, tip at 7, back at the hotel by 10:30, and the Leonida Keys are just sitting there waiting. I give it a week before some coach bans it at shootaround the way teams used to ban card games on the plane.

The ratings dip won't even be the fun part. The fun part will be some guy going 4 for 17 on the second night of a back to back and everyone in the building knowing exactly why.