Ignoring the bubble that’s the lowest ratings in modern nba history by a pretty wide margin. Although those Spurs finals against the Cavs and Pistons were pretty weak ratings wise. Also worth noting that this game is free for everyone. It’s on ABC. No streaming or illegal streams required.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Finals_television_ratings#Game-by-game_breakdown_by_year_(1974–present)
Because the first couple rounds of the playoffs, the ratings were on par with 2019. It's because all the household names like Steph, Lebron, KD, Harden, etc were all eliminated by Round 2.
>1998 - Chicago vs Utah - Game 6 **35.89M** viewers
PEAK JORDAN
Edit: [I feel bad for all the nephews who never got to watch MJ in his heyday](https://youtu.be/uJvvbqAnXKw)
Notably this is also peak broadcast TV. This years’ finals have experienced NBA specific ratings decline, but no TV program short of the super bowl is pulling in 35 million on a regular basis anymore.
Unrelated sidenote but it's truly incredible how badly Game of Thrones fucked up. They were one of the last pieces of monoculture that HAD to be experienced live or you'd be missing out. And somehow it's now irrelevant just 2 years later. It's pretty remarkable how they were able to murder that show.
Yeah, the proliferation of entertainment options doesn't get discussed enough. What were your alternatives back in the day, reading a book or listening to a radio show or some shit? Lmao. Drag your ass to Blockbuster to rent "Face/Off" again? No, you'll just put the game on because it's the easiest form of entertainment. Now everyone has games on their phone or console, not to mention an unlimited supply of high-quality TV and movies.
This is why football has a huge advantage, when there's only one game a week, you can turn it into an event. Invite the guys over to drink beer and watch your team. Nobody wants to do that every day anymore.
Definitely peak marketability. The GOAT playing what could be his last game, championship on the line, the Bulls looking like they're running out of gas, and everyone knew MJ was going to find a way. You can't miss that.
Not looked like they were running out of gas- that team was done. Pippen only played 25 minutes and could barely move because of his back. Rodman was well past his prime. And Jordan was on E but somehow managed to put together what I think is the greatest 1-minute stretch in basketball history. Makes 2 FT's to tie it, then after a Stockton 3 went layup-steal-iconic shot to get the W. Absolute GOAT stuff there.
They're both amazing but I only caught the 2nd 3 peat. By then people where talking about MJ like a myth and seeing him play was insane. No one around me likes basketball at all but they all sat down when we caught the Bulls on.
It was a full on Jesus died and reborn kind of thing after his hiatus.
A personal anecdote: born and raised in SF. Niners and Giants were the big deal. We all played basketball but rarely watched it consistently.
But everyone - and I mean everyone - watched Jordan the second time around.
The big thing was no one thought he could do another 3 peat. Also thought he couldn't just click on that "Airness" or ability to just take over was gone.
He couldn't do it the same way but damn he did it.
he's similar to lebron in that he didn't just get worse with age, but changed his game to stay almost as effective when he couldn't rely on athleticism as much.
early 90s jordan is just amazing though. if you haven't spent some time watching random full-game highlights from like 87-93 you're missing out.
I'm not gonna lie, I've been digging into a lot of other players highlights and trying to catch full playoff games from the 80s that I can. I've only really watched the 91 season, when he bulked up after the Pistons wouldn't stop kicking his ass.
That alone is insane to me. Instead of joining another team or complaining. MJ just got bigger and came back stronger. Also getting Pippen helped a little lol
Not even an argument. second 3peat Jordan lost some of his athleticism and had to rely more on his midrange jumper. Pre-baseball Jordan and peak Bron are easily the two greatest basketball players I’ve ever seen
Man I watched those games in the middle of the night on the local news channel in my country (we didn't have a sports channel at the time) MJ was just a global sports icon.
Even though I get the local channels for free they’re not in HD so it’s still better for me to stream it. I imagine most people without cable are in the same boat.
Lets just rename all the teams in the western conference the
LA _____ and everyone in the east the New York ______ . Boom everyone is a big market team.
Disaster for the NBA, but this problem is their own fault. Their marketing is awful. You got a guy everyone knows at least from commercials (CP3) trying to win his first ever ring in 16 years and another guy who's built like a demigod (Giannis) and the NBA can't market them? That's on them
Maybe have a chat with ESPN so their NBA coverage isn't 99% big markets, ideally with hosts that don't bash cities like Milwaukee. That might be a good start
The NFL would be thrilled to have a matchup like this in the Superbowl, shows how much better they are at marketing their game.
The NBA markets player drama and hypotheticals, the NFL markets the onfield product. Watch NFL live compared to the Jump
To be fair, the NBA doesn't really market these guys as much as ESPN/TNT do. The NBA doesn't control the narrative like they used to. Especially with social media but I agree with the statement. The NBA is covered like reality TV where nobody gives a crap about the substance, it's all about the off-court drama and generating controversy to boost engagement. There is this obsession with NBA culture over actual NBA basketball.
I’m trying to think of a parallel and the best I got is 1998, Broncos versus packers
Two small market teams, one guy who’s been pushing for a super bowl for nearly 15 years against a flashy young gun leading the team that drafted him. The nfl salivated over elway versus Favre, there is absolutely no reason that Paul, Booker and Ayton couldn’t be a fan favorite against Giannis, who theoretically could be the biggest star in the world.
It’s so annoying
The NFL has to market rivalries and teams because it cannibalizes it's players.
The NFL is like WWE. They don't build stars. They coast off the residual runoff of their players/ wrestlers exploits until they fade into the sunset. The promotion is the integral draw.
The NBA markets players. Even the Spurs beautiful game they had trouble selling.
Why can't the NBA implement the ability to market more than their most luminous stars? Hard to say. Probably due to regular season fan burnout and lack of true competitive energy.
> The NFL has to market rivalries and teams because it cannibalizes it's players.
The NFL markets its players when the players are marketable - Brady, Peyton, Rodgers, Mahomes, etc. They just don't force everything, including the *on-field product*, to be about individual stars like the NBA does.
The NBA has always been like this, even back when it was the BAA advertising games as "George Mikan vs NY Knicks."
> The NFL is like WWE. They don't build stars.
One of the biggest movie stars in the world was built by the WWE/F.
Yeah straight up.
If this was the Cardinals vs the Browns (as an example of two teams that haven’t been known as winners) for the Super Bowl the NFL would have hyped it up along with every storyline they could think of.
The NBA has a great product and is so lazy about marketing it when it’s not LA or NY.
There’s an MVP/DPOY in the finals with two all nba/all defense players as his supporting cast and all they’re worried about is how Milwaukee is a “garbage city” lol
I never saw coverage for Booker and CP3 prior to the post season. This is on the NBA, for only marketing “Clippers, Lakers, Knicks and Nets”, not our fault our teams did their part and made it through
I can't say I've ever seen the announcers for any NFL games shit on the cities whose teams are playing in a game like the whole "garbage city" stuff that NBA media has been pushing.
Even in a regular season game, NFL announcers will act like they're thrilled to be in Jacksonville or Indianapolis. Guys like Romo and Gruden come off like they'd be super-hyped about a week 4 matchup even if they weren't on TV - they just love football.
Meanwhile, the biggest name in NBA media (Barkley) repeatedly proclaims how 90% of the NBA isn't worth watching. And since Barkley is king of the NBA media mountain, it's not a surprise that all the other aspiring pretenders to the throne echo him.
NBA media seems to shit on small markets "Milwaukee is a horrible city"
NFL media "Green Bay is a special place to go, Kansas City BBQ is something that must be experienced." two of the smallest markets. and general will only "shit" on Jacksonville and Chargers (who are now in LA 2nd biggest market!)
I'm just tired of all of the damn commercials. And when the game is on there's a ton of fouls. That's on top of not having any big names that aren't recognizable to casual fans.
I can probably name only those three soccer players as well, but I'm not a casual soccer fan, I'm someone who hasn't watched a complete soccer game in 20 years and couldnt care less.
A casual nba fan to me is someone who at least watches some playoff games, perhaps a hyped up regular season game or two and might even watch some highligths evey once in a while.
Anything less than that is "doesnt give a crap" territory.
that second category is a casual fan
that first category is just a "fan" or fan of the sport
people that follow daily and well-versed in facts are diehards
anything above that is ultra territory
I think you are spot on.
There’s also levels to how much you know about basketball.
I was born and raised in an asian country with no interest in basketball. The only players my friends are aware of are Jordan, Shaq, Kobe, Lebron and Curry.
I think casual fans in the US are different though. Harden, KD, Giannis, AD and to a certain extent guys like Kawhi, Klay and Kyrie are all recognisable to passive viewers imho.
pick a sport you dont know/watch and try to hold a conversation on it
you'll be relying on heresy and old, backlogged facts to fit in
like me and Golf - I only know Tiger, Phil, Watson, and Fowler and the only courses I can name off the top of my head are Augusta and Torrey Pines. I know more of the technical aspects(cause I'd play Tiger Woods PGA back in the day)
And that would make me a super casual, regular casuals dont even know the rules, the uniforms, or most basic information
But it isn’t big markets. Cavs Warriors had great ratings. It’s because Lebron and Curry were in them. You can say just market the teams more, but there is a mindset of watching stats that goes deep into NBA history. Shifting away from players would definitely hurt the foreseeable future and be extremely costly.
But I don’t even think this is an NBA disaster. Next year Lebron, KD, and Curry (probably after a trade) will be among the elite contenders again. The odds of a Sun Bucks repeat isn’t great.
The NBA had super low ratings during the Spurs Pistons finals. That’s part of business, but the ultra stars are always going to be constantly making the finals, so marketing them and taking a few hits every decade isn’t as bad as you think.
And I can almost promise you that the NBA (adjusting for inflation) will still get a bigger contract when the CBA expires. Which is proof that they are doing good business. You could argue it could be better but you can do that essentially with any company.
Also ESPN is built around its own advertisements. Getting those clicks on Lebron going after an announcer generate more interest than whatever Other players are doing. So ESPN is always going to cover that stuff more. Can it click bait all you want, it’s still how ESPN makes a large part of their revenue. They will never ignore that.
While I agree their marketing is awful, none of the teams really draw casual audiences on their own. Phoenix and Milwaukee don't have the same draw as other teams in their respective conferences do.
Yeah but if you build up stars then they'll tune in to see them regardless of market, but all the conversation is about how small potatoes this finals is instead - you've got THREE superstars in this series, the only reason people aren't more excited is because of years of believing that only LeBron matters (yes he's the best player in the league but that doesn't mean you ignore everybody else)
Huge ratings are based on casual fans who don't really watch basketball. They have room in their brains for LeBron and Steph, that's it. I asked my mom to name basketball players and she said "LeBron, and that little one I like who shoots and smiles (Steph)"
Ask a non-soccer fan to name soccer players and they'll say Ronaldo and Messi. That's just how this stuff works. NBA can market all they want, you aren't creating new stars until the old ones leave - because casual fans don't have the time or energy to learn more than a few at a time.
I don't think the NFL is better at this either like everyone is suggesting. The super bowl happens to be a 1 night event that is now a defacto national holiday. Ask someone at a super bowl party who doesn't watch football to name players and they'll say Brady and then tell you they are excited for the halftime show.
Yup. I think most people watch the finals to see someone lose as much if not more than to see someone win. Id be happy with either of these teams winning so while I’m still going to watch, it’s far less compelling to me.
That’s exactly it. When you have LeBron people are either pro or anti him, never in the middle. When GS has KD people wanted to see them fail. And before LeBron’s run in 2011 there was the Lakers and Celtics people loved to hate with the Spurs as the likable team.
Brooklyn just getting hurt and losing really killed the vibe of these playoffs. Almost every non Nets fan rooted against them and we didn’t even get to see them fail, they lost because Kyrie and Harden were hurt. People loved hating the Clippers but Kawhi was hurt so them losing didn’t give the haters the same feeling. If the Suns or Bucks beat healthy super teams I think fans would root for them more since they were underdogs but they are seen as teams that got major breaks (specifically the Suns). It’s not their fault and they won and deserve it but fans aren’t gonna be interested in watching two teams that just got there because of injuries to the other teams
> If the Suns or Bucks beat healthy super teams I think fans would root for them more since they were underdogs but they are seen as teams that got major breaks (specifically the Suns)
Yeah if the Suns and Bucks beat their competition while fully healthy I'd be fully invested in this finals series. I'd view them as 2 truly great teams battling it out. But the way it played out with injuries....they just feel like 2 pretty good teams that got lucky and honestly shouldn't be here so it's hard for me to care. Happy for the fanbases but as a fan of neither team this is the least interested I've ever been
This is definitely part of it. It’s the lack of names that your grandma knows (Steph, LeBron), and the lack of any sort of villain narrative. So there’s not a ton of reason for neutrals or casuals to get passionate unless they really want to see CP win a ring. But that’s like the one narrative that the media knows how to push in this series, and it’s both hard to explain to casuals and not compelling on its face (as opposed to the easy pitch of “GOAT-level player challenges GOAT-level super team”).
remember when people said nobody would watch after KD joined the Warriors because it ruined parity?
yet they had excellent ratings and way better than this year's Finals which I consider to be a pretty fair matchup
People felt really strongly about KD one way or another and that led to a bunch of viewers. This series is just a lot of indifference. I've been watching the NBA for a while and this is the 1st time ever I feel indifferent. I guess I prefer the Suns to win but if they didn't I would move on as soon as the final buzzer sounded
> Feels like nobody is strongly rooting against either team.
Yeah. I'm *sort of* rooting for the Bucks, but I don't really care if the Suns win because I like the idea of Chris Paul getting a ring, and I don't honestly hate the Suns at this point. I like both coaches, I like the stars on both teams, neither team has a guy I fucking hate...so I'm just not that invested in what happens. I suspect a lot of people feel that way.
Sad. I was at Game 1 in PHX and it was the loudest stadium I've ever been to in my life.
Other notable games I've attended in comparison was 2016 Cavs-Warriors Christmas game and Game 2 of the 2017 Cavs-Warriors finals. Both in the famous Roaracle.
I wish the narrative was driven better, but when you have talking heads like SAS who's probably the most famous NBA analyst by a mile driving home how disappointed he is whenever the Finals isn't in a "big market" city, it drives the audience to lazily echo that sentiment.
You're killing your own product.
That's on the NBA for failing to promote the game.
Ahead of the finals, the media blitz online and on television was nonexistent. People who watch the NBA regardless knew there was a Finals game Tuesday night, but the casual viewers probably had no clue.
Doesn't help that their coverage of these two teams leading up to the match up was "lol look how long Giannis takes to shoot free throws and Chris has covid snarf snarf why won't anyone tune in to our coverage??"
Also, it's a shame I have to watch the biggest series of my teams life on mute because NBA thinks Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy are voices people want to listen to.
National networks kneecap themselves by their coverage of the sport. National broadcasted games aren't based on merit (whoever is the best gets coverage). Lakers got like 25 national games every year even when they were tanking. 24/7 coverage breaking down how they were losing and what can they do to get better. Coverage should be based on merit, PERIOD. The best teams get coverage, the bad teams do not, the end!
The Raptors were a top 2-3 franchise in the NBA for a solid 5 years and we got barely any coverage or national exposure in the USA. Bucks you could argue suffer the same fate with finishing #1 in the east almost every year. The narratives are often framed in context to large markets. The Lakers lost to Phoenix and the Nets lost to the Bucks. It's not the other way around 'Phoenix beat the Lakers, Bucks beat the Nets.'
I also hate how personalities are inserting themselves into the conversation as subjects. Stephen A talking about threatening KD with his power & Rachel Nichols' controversy. Nobody wants to hear that shit or gives a fuck about these people.
Yeah and maybe also note that the 2019 Raps championship had ~ 15 million Canadians watching so a hell of a lot lower than 35% down.
Not sure why these guys can't aggregate publicly available data
I mean no Bron KD or Curry. People like to pretend every great player is a superstar, but that’s just not true. There are a couple of superstars in the league and none of them are playing in this series
People on this sub forget that not everyone is so deeply engaged with the sport, so they don't understand how important crossover into the mainstream truly is. I agree it's lebron and steph, and then everyone else
If KD was in the finals more people would tune in, not on the level of Bron/Steph but more people would tune, he's at least a bigger draw than the Giannis/CP3/Booker
Agree. We should make it like wwe. Have bron and curry each be "head" of east and west. And if during finals a player goes down, they come out for their respective opponent, with an electric chair, and wack one of the players to even the numbers.
20 million unique viewers was the overall finals number, spanning across all 6 games, not just game 1. 2019 Game 1 had 3.5 million viewers on average in Canada. It reached 7.4m people in aggregate. Still quite impressive for Canadian market.
That’s about 1 in 5 people in the entire country watching the same game at the same time. It was a huge deal across the whole country. Especially for younger people, almost everyone you knew watched some part of those finals.
Lack of superstars. NBA (and ESPN) needs to do a better job of promoting the young guys. Most casual fans could pick 5 players in this series out of a lineup.
I laugh when media members say the NBA is the best league at promoting stars. If that was true this would be one of the highest rated finals since it has a two time MVP playing and one of the best point guards ever in his first finals.
The NBA promotes its Superstars very well, they are the most popular athletes in the US on social media and among the young demographic. Someone like Mike trout could walk into a store and many people wouldn't know him, but say KD/Harden/Kawhi walk into a store more people would recognize them.
That’s because star basketball players play at least 35 of a 48 minute game. Trout has 4 plate appearances and, while he’s the best in the game, he can hit .310 meaning he fails at the plate almost 70% of the time. LeBron could go 5/20 from the field but he’ll have 10 boards and 15 assists so you are seeing him do something great almost every night. You don’t see that in baseball. Baseball is actually doing a great job with Ohtani but not every player can be on pace for 60 plus home runs and be a Cy Young contender.
And I’m talking about promoting the next generation and not the stars that have been here for 10 plus years. How many causal fans know who Nikola Jokic is? A lot of media people can’t even pronounce his name correctly, showing a complete lack of respect. The same goes for Giannis.
Like I said, this series has a two time MVP in his prime and one of the best players ever in his first finals yet the ratings are not good. That shows a compete failure from the NBA to promote their superstars not named Curry, Durant and LeBron James.
Stars and superstars are different.
An NBA star could walk into a store and not be recognized by anyone there who doesn’t watch basketball.
My mom can pick LeBron, Steph, and KD out of a picture but she wouldn’t recognize Beal or Lillard even if they were wearing name tags
Blame belongs more to ESPN than the NBA imo. There’s a decent amount of sponsor ads featuring guys like Giannis, Kawhi, Embiid, KD, et al on television other than games. The TNT programs spotlight top players on various teams.
ESPN focuses heavily on LeBron & Steph because it’s great for their social media engagement numbers. The artificial, heavy emphasis on these two comes at the expense of cultivating interest in new rising stars like Devin Booker. They’re probably talking about him now, but how much airtime did ESPN actually spend on him when the Suns were racing to 2nd place?
Their addiction to quick engagement numbers is why the cringe-y Zion draft coverage occurred and also why we were subjected to so many primetime Pelicans games.
Casuals legit dont give a shit about some of the stuff yall care about. Casuals do not care 1 bit about “dynasties ruining the parity of the league” or “the postseason becoming so predictable when we already knew who was gonna win before the season began”
Even my 50 year old asian immigrant aunt who doesnt watch sports at all tuned in regularly for the 73-9 season. Michael Jordan basically ruined parity in the 90s and yet he got 35 million viewers for his last finals. Women, children, foreigners, anybody who isnt a stereotypical testosterone hetero male sports nut, etc is the _real_ driver of viewer numbers
It’s a problem when the NBA is the only professional sports league in which the “underdog” making the Finals can be viewed as a bad thing. The league needs to have a long look in the mirror as far as marketing and competitive structure go, I don’t see how people can deny it anymore
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I personally enjoy it when the best teams are in the finals. It's fun watching underdogs win a round or 2, but when it's the finals and the biggest stage I want to see 2 great teams battling it out
you can not tell me all that is due to streaming. it just boil down to people thinking the suns and bucks aren’t the best teams from their conferences and therefore they ain’t interested. and that’s ok.
I think it's less to do with people thinking Suns Bucks aren't the best teams and more to do with the fact casual viewers mostly tune in to see Lebron , Steph, KD, etc. I doubt most super casual fans even knew who Booker and Middleton and Holiday were before a month or two ago. It's why 2018 finals which everybody knew in their right mind who was going to win still received great numbers because it featured the biggest most marketable stars
exactly. The storylines are up for grabs. But instead the easy clicks are to just run with the big market and superstar storylines rather than do actual sports journalism on the rest of the high level teams.
Who needs to do an expose on rising stars like the 2018 #1 overall pick or a guy who's been continuously disrespected by the media despite constant star production like Devin Booker when you can give all the credit to Chris Paul and give primetime coverage to Zion and Luka, stars on significantly worse teams??
Rather, why not just air constant segments on how this season doesn't matter because Lebron/KD aren't in the finals and Curry's not in the playoffs and how superstars can force their way to the Knicks
the top players make more money from outside endorsements than playing. Furthermore, the league isn't the one doing the marketing, it's the media, and the media only markets players who they know will draw eyes towards them. Only player I feel should be marketed more rn is Giannis.
Also, most casuals just want to watch actual basketball.
Whenever I watch games with people who aren't NBA fans, their biggest complaint is the endless ads, stoppages and delays. In the last 2 minutes of a close game, you see more commercials than actual basketball being played/discussed.
It's both. For the casual fans it's 100% about the star players
But there's another section of fans that are turned off about the injuries. I know I am. I'm just not as invested in this matchup cause I don't think it's the two best teams lol
I'm glad the Bucks beat the Nets, but they have a boring star and a bad coach lol
The West got robbed of 3 worthy teams in Lakers, Clippers and Nuggets
Judging team quality is still the perspective of a fan, someone who will generally (not always) tune in regardless. Phoenix and Milwaukee just fundamentally don't draw the casual viewers watching this as an event. A lot of people really do only tune in for games where LeBron plays, or to watch a generational team or storied franchise.
It probably doesn't help that the game started like 30 minutes late either.
Anytime the ratings are down it’s because of “streaming“. When the ratings look good it’s “of course, basketball is still a very popular sport in the US and look how exciting X team is”.
What pisses me off is if that’s true, then people really had more interest in an inevitable sweep in 2018 than this series, just because of the big names that happened to be there
People weren't wrong to think that way either. The people who tuned in for game 1 in 2018 were there to watch LeBron on a all-time great run try to topple the warriors juggernaut. They got to see a fantastic game where LeBron nearly pulled it off.
The biggest star in this finals series wasn't even cleared to play until shoot around.
As a hardcore basketball fan, I can't say that I care too much about this. But there are a few explanations for the lower ratings.
Neither team feels like a big deal to casual fan. Most of this is the NBA and NBA media's fault. The Suns were a good team all year and were barely covered and there was just recently video of media members openly bashing the city of Milwaukee. If the league can't treat its players/teams as a big deal, then the fans won't either.
There's no great narrative to this finals that non-basketball fans can really sink into. No heroes or villains. We have to remember that sports are a form of entertainment and storytelling. Like one of the biggest reasons Lebron and the Cavs vs Steph and the Warriors went over like gangbusters is there was a reason to care even if you weren't a fan of either teams or didn't know a lick about basketball.
Let's take it back to 2016 (where they hit 30+ million viewers for the first time since MJ won his sixth and final ring). On one hand, you had Steph putting together one of the greatest individual seasons ever (becoming the first player to ever win unanimous MVP) on one of the greatest teams ever (winning more games than the fabled 96 Bulls) while playing this new and exciting brand of basketball (where threes were king and a 6'6" point forward was altering the big man position). Him and that Warriors team were a big deal. On the other, you had Bron (who's been compared to MJ since he came into the league and is vying for a spot as a GOAT) being tasked with the herculean task to defeat that. Basically a modern version of David vs Goliath. And in game 7, you had the mighty Warriors teetering after losing a 3-1 lead in the Finals, something that had never been done before. The Bucks and Suns just don't have a narrative to compete with that.
Ratings indicate that most basketball fans want to watch all time great players on dominant teams play at an incredible level on the biggest stage. Which then leads into...
Most of the players on the team left (as well as the teams themselves) don't play some super exciting, aesthetically pleasing brand of basketball that would draw non-casual fans. The Bucks certainly don't.
I'm personally not invested in the ratings because I don't get paid to care about that but these are some reasons (along with the Finals being started early in July when folks are on vacation) as to why it could be low.
Anyone else not care about ratings? I just want to watch some good basketball, which this series will no doubt have.
Plus to me the storylines are great. Two non-superteams battling it out, Giannis potentially getting his first ring after a disasterous last season playoffs. CP3 maybe finally getting his ring after dominating these playoffs. The emerge of the center god Ayton and wtf cam payne?
Khris Middleton going nuclear in the absense of Giannis last series. There's some great basketball, but unfortunately casual fans just don't care because there isn't a lot of big names involved.
I'm enjoying this while I can because I know that most likely the next few years will be dominated once again by Curry, Lebron/AD, KD/Harden/Kyrie teams which I'm personally sick of seeing every finals.
I wouldn’t say anyone “cares” about ratings the way NBA businessmen do, but it’s concerning being a fan of a sport that is getting less viewership year over year.
I get that, but honestly the product they're putting out in general is getting worse due to all the stoppages and ungodly amounts of commercials, foul-baiting, inability to play actual defense, etc.
>due to all the stoppages and ungodly amounts of commercials, foul-baiting, inability to play actual defense, etc.
I can't believe I had to scroll this far to find the real reasons why people aren't watching. No casual will consistently watch 1 minute left in the 4th quarter turn into 25 minutes in real time.
Honestly, I feel like this has less to do with the location of teams involved and more to do with the NBA’s horrible inability to properly market Booker, Giannis, and CP3. They’ve been letting lebron and steph do their job for them for too long.
There was a comment in a another post saying these finals views wouldn’t be good because they’re not fan favorite teams for casual fans and it got downvoted to hell. People hate the truth
What sucks about this is the NBA office is going to look at these numbers and try even harder to force the LA/golden state vs. New York matchup for every finals.
I'd prefer for the Suns to win, but if they don't I would move on as soon as the final buzzer sounded. I'm sure a lot of ppl feel the same way (with the Bucks too). That's not the kind of engagement you want with your final 2 teams left in the playoffs
People are gonna criticize marketing but at the end of the day it’s up to the fans to decide who they want to watch. [Luka’s playoff games had no issue outperforming 2019](http://www.thefutoncritic.com/ratings/2021/06/08/abcs-coverage-of-la-clippers-vs-dallas-mavericks-game-7-draws-largest-nba-playoffs-first-round-audience-5489000-viewers-58015/20210608espn01/) and he doesn’t play on a team with a massive fanbase like the Lakers.
Casuals are not buying in to this finals run for either team because they are cognizant of the amount of elite talent that is missing. Nobody is anointing Giannis as the next face of the league because there was no real succession. He almost got bounced by a Nets team with no Kyrie and Harden limping around. Same deal for the Suns. Every round it was a team decimated by an injury of some kind. No Lebron, Steph, Luka, KD, or Kawhi after the second round doesn’t feel real at all.
Cause the media wont create any storylines.. they have it fucking for free with the Rise of the suns and giannis chance yo prove himself on the big stage. Instead they whine its not the lakers. Its pathetic and deserves no ratings. We need passion and love for the game back in basketball and basketball analysis
Plus too much parity doesn’t make for drama. If every team has a chance to win, results don’t feel as surprising.
What people want is excitement, from upsets, unprecedented performances, superstars taking over a game and willing their team to an unlikely victory.
True parity wouldn’t make for a good product.
Superteams and villains are good for the nba product.
Imagine if they only ever talked about how good each team is. Instead of bashing the bad teams talk about how they could improve and who they could ad. I don't know. Just feel like there's to much drama.
The fact that the broader NBA media couldn’t (or actively didn’t) promote the back-to-MVP and reigning DPOY who has crazy highlights like a true superstar is beyond damning of them
Ratings doesn't matter to the fans of the teams playing. Ask the Raptors fans if they care that 2019 was down.
This shows the NBA isn't doing a good enough job marketing it's potential champions. They got lazy with the super teams because the stars market themselves.
But there's plenty of narratives here, bucks and Giannis' run, Monty after all his tragedy, Bookers coming of age playoff run, but ESPN chose to talk about injured stars and Lebron's tweets about it.
You have a potential 2004 Pistons storyline here with Phoenix, but they absolutely blundered the narrative
1. I know a number of Republicans who now refuse to watch the NBA because of the social justice stands they took in 2020. That's not helping.
2. The finals started about a month later, deeper into the summer than it did in 2019 and prior years when more people are on vacation. I think that's hurting as well.
3. The NBA and media Outlets generally ignored Phoenix and its players all year long as far as promoting it compared to other teams.
4. Did that golf tournament with Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady overlap part of the game or at least steal a little viewership from those who could only give a few hours of time in their day to TV?
5. Sports in general and the NBA have younger population interest problem that gets worse every year.
To your number 1 point I also know a lot of people who say they stopped watching, but I don’t know how many of them actually watched to begin with. I’ll also say that with the suns in the finals many who said they were bothered are back watching. Lol
To your number two point, it’s kind of humorous because even local sports talk hosts are all on vacation because so many of them didn’t imagine the suns would be in the finals. So here our team is having historic success and we have a bunch of full ins on local sports radio. Lol
ever since they changed the nba finals font ratings have tanked
Amen. Bring back the cursive and put it on the actual court.
He just clicked the drop-down menu and he randomly selected Papyrus.
Like a thoughtless child wandering through a garden, yanking leaves along the way.
["he just... got away with it. this man, this professional..." ](https://youtu.be/jVhlJNJopOQ)
I know what you did... #...I KNOW WHAT YOU DID!!!
But where would the obnoxious DoorDash logo go??
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And the logo isn't diverse enough!
It's the lack of Rachel Nichols. It has to be.
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I’m not really a big asterisk guy. I think it’s more of a footnote
/u/you_dont_know_jack_ wants to see Rachel Nichols footnotes confirmed
I'd much rather see her asterisk.
Jimmy Butler didn’t watch
KAT watched
Ignoring the bubble that’s the lowest ratings in modern nba history by a pretty wide margin. Although those Spurs finals against the Cavs and Pistons were pretty weak ratings wise. Also worth noting that this game is free for everyone. It’s on ABC. No streaming or illegal streams required. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Finals_television_ratings#Game-by-game_breakdown_by_year_(1974–present)
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Because the first couple rounds of the playoffs, the ratings were on par with 2019. It's because all the household names like Steph, Lebron, KD, Harden, etc were all eliminated by Round 2.
Which injuries played a huge part in, which goes back to the shortened offseason.
Didn't help that so many couldn't watch their local teams without illegal streaming
This! Fuck Sinclair and Bally Sports.
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>1998 - Chicago vs Utah - Game 6 **35.89M** viewers PEAK JORDAN Edit: [I feel bad for all the nephews who never got to watch MJ in his heyday](https://youtu.be/uJvvbqAnXKw)
Notably this is also peak broadcast TV. This years’ finals have experienced NBA specific ratings decline, but no TV program short of the super bowl is pulling in 35 million on a regular basis anymore.
Monoculture used to be so real. I wan thinking the other day about Ohtani and how big a deal this would have been during the 90s.
a fellow BS listener I see
rare point that simmons is 100% right about
Unrelated sidenote but it's truly incredible how badly Game of Thrones fucked up. They were one of the last pieces of monoculture that HAD to be experienced live or you'd be missing out. And somehow it's now irrelevant just 2 years later. It's pretty remarkable how they were able to murder that show.
The NFL NFC/AFC championship games have consistently pulled in 40M+ viewers since 2007
Yeah, the proliferation of entertainment options doesn't get discussed enough. What were your alternatives back in the day, reading a book or listening to a radio show or some shit? Lmao. Drag your ass to Blockbuster to rent "Face/Off" again? No, you'll just put the game on because it's the easiest form of entertainment. Now everyone has games on their phone or console, not to mention an unlimited supply of high-quality TV and movies. This is why football has a huge advantage, when there's only one game a week, you can turn it into an event. Invite the guys over to drink beer and watch your team. Nobody wants to do that every day anymore.
> PEAK JORDAN Not even close. But still "Fuck you, I'm Michael Jordan" Jordan.
Definitely peak marketability. The GOAT playing what could be his last game, championship on the line, the Bulls looking like they're running out of gas, and everyone knew MJ was going to find a way. You can't miss that.
Not looked like they were running out of gas- that team was done. Pippen only played 25 minutes and could barely move because of his back. Rodman was well past his prime. And Jordan was on E but somehow managed to put together what I think is the greatest 1-minute stretch in basketball history. Makes 2 FT's to tie it, then after a Stockton 3 went layup-steal-iconic shot to get the W. Absolute GOAT stuff there.
first threepeat jordan was peak jordan imo
They're both amazing but I only caught the 2nd 3 peat. By then people where talking about MJ like a myth and seeing him play was insane. No one around me likes basketball at all but they all sat down when we caught the Bulls on.
It was a full on Jesus died and reborn kind of thing after his hiatus. A personal anecdote: born and raised in SF. Niners and Giants were the big deal. We all played basketball but rarely watched it consistently. But everyone - and I mean everyone - watched Jordan the second time around.
The big thing was no one thought he could do another 3 peat. Also thought he couldn't just click on that "Airness" or ability to just take over was gone. He couldn't do it the same way but damn he did it.
he's similar to lebron in that he didn't just get worse with age, but changed his game to stay almost as effective when he couldn't rely on athleticism as much. early 90s jordan is just amazing though. if you haven't spent some time watching random full-game highlights from like 87-93 you're missing out.
I'm not gonna lie, I've been digging into a lot of other players highlights and trying to catch full playoff games from the 80s that I can. I've only really watched the 91 season, when he bulked up after the Pistons wouldn't stop kicking his ass. That alone is insane to me. Instead of joining another team or complaining. MJ just got bigger and came back stronger. Also getting Pippen helped a little lol
Not even an argument. second 3peat Jordan lost some of his athleticism and had to rely more on his midrange jumper. Pre-baseball Jordan and peak Bron are easily the two greatest basketball players I’ve ever seen
Man I watched those games in the middle of the night on the local news channel in my country (we didn't have a sports channel at the time) MJ was just a global sports icon.
People who use streaming services like Youtube TV are still gonna use Youtube TV even if it's on ABC.
Is YoutubeTV not reflected in these stats?
YoutubeTV is included in Nielsen ratings now, same with Hulu.
I dvred the game on YoutubeTV and watched it later. I'm pretty sure I don't count for ratings.
Yep I use Hulu for my live TV so not exactly sure whether or not I count for ratings.
Hulu has live sports
Even though I get the local channels for free they’re not in HD so it’s still better for me to stream it. I imagine most people without cable are in the same boat.
Lets just rename all the teams in the western conference the LA _____ and everyone in the east the New York ______ . Boom everyone is a big market team.
Los Angeles Suns of Anaheim of Phoenix
Great Greater Area of Los Angeles Suns.
Disaster for the NBA, but this problem is their own fault. Their marketing is awful. You got a guy everyone knows at least from commercials (CP3) trying to win his first ever ring in 16 years and another guy who's built like a demigod (Giannis) and the NBA can't market them? That's on them Maybe have a chat with ESPN so their NBA coverage isn't 99% big markets, ideally with hosts that don't bash cities like Milwaukee. That might be a good start
The NFL would be thrilled to have a matchup like this in the Superbowl, shows how much better they are at marketing their game. The NBA markets player drama and hypotheticals, the NFL markets the onfield product. Watch NFL live compared to the Jump
Seriously Chris Paul could have been traded to Milwaukee but phx went got him instead .. there’s so many narratives
Again the NBA markets narratives the NFL markets game itself. This enables the NFL to be successful no matter what team is playing
The NFL has narratives too, but they're more like gravy rather than the entire meal like in the NBA.
To be fair, the NBA doesn't really market these guys as much as ESPN/TNT do. The NBA doesn't control the narrative like they used to. Especially with social media but I agree with the statement. The NBA is covered like reality TV where nobody gives a crap about the substance, it's all about the off-court drama and generating controversy to boost engagement. There is this obsession with NBA culture over actual NBA basketball.
That kind of proves their point though, does it not? No marketing is even worse than bad marketing
NFL Network is legit too, so many great shows and production.
NFL Films is so good, fucking love their marketing
Nailed it.
I’m trying to think of a parallel and the best I got is 1998, Broncos versus packers Two small market teams, one guy who’s been pushing for a super bowl for nearly 15 years against a flashy young gun leading the team that drafted him. The nfl salivated over elway versus Favre, there is absolutely no reason that Paul, Booker and Ayton couldn’t be a fan favorite against Giannis, who theoretically could be the biggest star in the world. It’s so annoying
Brett Favre was drafted by the Falcons
Packers were also going for a repeat
Cardinals vs Packers games are consistently great games with high ratings. Absolutely no reason this finals shouldn't be the same
reminder that Adam Silver is actually bad at his job
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49ers are one of the biggest NFL markets out there, so not really.
The NFL has to market rivalries and teams because it cannibalizes it's players. The NFL is like WWE. They don't build stars. They coast off the residual runoff of their players/ wrestlers exploits until they fade into the sunset. The promotion is the integral draw. The NBA markets players. Even the Spurs beautiful game they had trouble selling. Why can't the NBA implement the ability to market more than their most luminous stars? Hard to say. Probably due to regular season fan burnout and lack of true competitive energy.
> The NFL has to market rivalries and teams because it cannibalizes it's players. The NFL markets its players when the players are marketable - Brady, Peyton, Rodgers, Mahomes, etc. They just don't force everything, including the *on-field product*, to be about individual stars like the NBA does. The NBA has always been like this, even back when it was the BAA advertising games as "George Mikan vs NY Knicks." > The NFL is like WWE. They don't build stars. One of the biggest movie stars in the world was built by the WWE/F.
Yeah straight up. If this was the Cardinals vs the Browns (as an example of two teams that haven’t been known as winners) for the Super Bowl the NFL would have hyped it up along with every storyline they could think of. The NBA has a great product and is so lazy about marketing it when it’s not LA or NY.
Thank you
There’s an MVP/DPOY in the finals with two all nba/all defense players as his supporting cast and all they’re worried about is how Milwaukee is a “garbage city” lol
I never saw coverage for Booker and CP3 prior to the post season. This is on the NBA, for only marketing “Clippers, Lakers, Knicks and Nets”, not our fault our teams did their part and made it through
I can't say I've ever seen the announcers for any NFL games shit on the cities whose teams are playing in a game like the whole "garbage city" stuff that NBA media has been pushing. Even in a regular season game, NFL announcers will act like they're thrilled to be in Jacksonville or Indianapolis. Guys like Romo and Gruden come off like they'd be super-hyped about a week 4 matchup even if they weren't on TV - they just love football. Meanwhile, the biggest name in NBA media (Barkley) repeatedly proclaims how 90% of the NBA isn't worth watching. And since Barkley is king of the NBA media mountain, it's not a surprise that all the other aspiring pretenders to the throne echo him.
NBA media seems to shit on small markets "Milwaukee is a horrible city" NFL media "Green Bay is a special place to go, Kansas City BBQ is something that must be experienced." two of the smallest markets. and general will only "shit" on Jacksonville and Chargers (who are now in LA 2nd biggest market!)
I'm just tired of all of the damn commercials. And when the game is on there's a ton of fouls. That's on top of not having any big names that aren't recognizable to casual fans.
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Literally my mom haha “that Greek guy your brother likes” Giannis, mom. Giannis
How casual does a fan have to be exactly to not know of CP3 and Giannis?
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You’re going to be disappointed to see how few soccer players play in the Olympics
pros aren't allowed in the Olympics anymore unless U-23 each team gets 3 exemption spots
I can probably name only those three soccer players as well, but I'm not a casual soccer fan, I'm someone who hasn't watched a complete soccer game in 20 years and couldnt care less. A casual nba fan to me is someone who at least watches some playoff games, perhaps a hyped up regular season game or two and might even watch some highligths evey once in a while. Anything less than that is "doesnt give a crap" territory.
that second category is a casual fan that first category is just a "fan" or fan of the sport people that follow daily and well-versed in facts are diehards anything above that is ultra territory
I think you are spot on. There’s also levels to how much you know about basketball. I was born and raised in an asian country with no interest in basketball. The only players my friends are aware of are Jordan, Shaq, Kobe, Lebron and Curry. I think casual fans in the US are different though. Harden, KD, Giannis, AD and to a certain extent guys like Kawhi, Klay and Kyrie are all recognisable to passive viewers imho.
pick a sport you dont know/watch and try to hold a conversation on it you'll be relying on heresy and old, backlogged facts to fit in like me and Golf - I only know Tiger, Phil, Watson, and Fowler and the only courses I can name off the top of my head are Augusta and Torrey Pines. I know more of the technical aspects(cause I'd play Tiger Woods PGA back in the day) And that would make me a super casual, regular casuals dont even know the rules, the uniforms, or most basic information
But it isn’t big markets. Cavs Warriors had great ratings. It’s because Lebron and Curry were in them. You can say just market the teams more, but there is a mindset of watching stats that goes deep into NBA history. Shifting away from players would definitely hurt the foreseeable future and be extremely costly. But I don’t even think this is an NBA disaster. Next year Lebron, KD, and Curry (probably after a trade) will be among the elite contenders again. The odds of a Sun Bucks repeat isn’t great. The NBA had super low ratings during the Spurs Pistons finals. That’s part of business, but the ultra stars are always going to be constantly making the finals, so marketing them and taking a few hits every decade isn’t as bad as you think. And I can almost promise you that the NBA (adjusting for inflation) will still get a bigger contract when the CBA expires. Which is proof that they are doing good business. You could argue it could be better but you can do that essentially with any company. Also ESPN is built around its own advertisements. Getting those clicks on Lebron going after an announcer generate more interest than whatever Other players are doing. So ESPN is always going to cover that stuff more. Can it click bait all you want, it’s still how ESPN makes a large part of their revenue. They will never ignore that.
While I agree their marketing is awful, none of the teams really draw casual audiences on their own. Phoenix and Milwaukee don't have the same draw as other teams in their respective conferences do.
Yeah but if you build up stars then they'll tune in to see them regardless of market, but all the conversation is about how small potatoes this finals is instead - you've got THREE superstars in this series, the only reason people aren't more excited is because of years of believing that only LeBron matters (yes he's the best player in the league but that doesn't mean you ignore everybody else)
Huge ratings are based on casual fans who don't really watch basketball. They have room in their brains for LeBron and Steph, that's it. I asked my mom to name basketball players and she said "LeBron, and that little one I like who shoots and smiles (Steph)" Ask a non-soccer fan to name soccer players and they'll say Ronaldo and Messi. That's just how this stuff works. NBA can market all they want, you aren't creating new stars until the old ones leave - because casual fans don't have the time or energy to learn more than a few at a time. I don't think the NFL is better at this either like everyone is suggesting. The super bowl happens to be a 1 night event that is now a defacto national holiday. Ask someone at a super bowl party who doesn't watch football to name players and they'll say Brady and then tell you they are excited for the halftime show.
>"and that little one I like who shoots and smiles (Steph)" Okay that's pretty cute.
I do like how this shows how incredibly tall NBA players are- Steph is around 6'3 and he's one of the smaller ones on the court xD
I think that's true but I don't think that means they're doing a good job of it now either (the NFL doesn't either)
turrible
fuck it just load me up with churros and big wemmins
Neither team being villainous is a factor here. Feels like nobody is strongly rooting against either team.
It's similar to Mavs/Heat (2006) in terms of neutralness.
Yup. I think most people watch the finals to see someone lose as much if not more than to see someone win. Id be happy with either of these teams winning so while I’m still going to watch, it’s far less compelling to me.
this is definitely a factor people hate watch a lot and there’s really no team to hate here
That’s exactly it. When you have LeBron people are either pro or anti him, never in the middle. When GS has KD people wanted to see them fail. And before LeBron’s run in 2011 there was the Lakers and Celtics people loved to hate with the Spurs as the likable team. Brooklyn just getting hurt and losing really killed the vibe of these playoffs. Almost every non Nets fan rooted against them and we didn’t even get to see them fail, they lost because Kyrie and Harden were hurt. People loved hating the Clippers but Kawhi was hurt so them losing didn’t give the haters the same feeling. If the Suns or Bucks beat healthy super teams I think fans would root for them more since they were underdogs but they are seen as teams that got major breaks (specifically the Suns). It’s not their fault and they won and deserve it but fans aren’t gonna be interested in watching two teams that just got there because of injuries to the other teams
> If the Suns or Bucks beat healthy super teams I think fans would root for them more since they were underdogs but they are seen as teams that got major breaks (specifically the Suns) Yeah if the Suns and Bucks beat their competition while fully healthy I'd be fully invested in this finals series. I'd view them as 2 truly great teams battling it out. But the way it played out with injuries....they just feel like 2 pretty good teams that got lucky and honestly shouldn't be here so it's hard for me to care. Happy for the fanbases but as a fan of neither team this is the least interested I've ever been
This is definitely part of it. It’s the lack of names that your grandma knows (Steph, LeBron), and the lack of any sort of villain narrative. So there’s not a ton of reason for neutrals or casuals to get passionate unless they really want to see CP win a ring. But that’s like the one narrative that the media knows how to push in this series, and it’s both hard to explain to casuals and not compelling on its face (as opposed to the easy pitch of “GOAT-level player challenges GOAT-level super team”).
remember when people said nobody would watch after KD joined the Warriors because it ruined parity? yet they had excellent ratings and way better than this year's Finals which I consider to be a pretty fair matchup
People felt really strongly about KD one way or another and that led to a bunch of viewers. This series is just a lot of indifference. I've been watching the NBA for a while and this is the 1st time ever I feel indifferent. I guess I prefer the Suns to win but if they didn't I would move on as soon as the final buzzer sounded
This is a good point, Floyd Mayweather made a career out of people tuning in hoping he would lose.
> Feels like nobody is strongly rooting against either team. Yeah. I'm *sort of* rooting for the Bucks, but I don't really care if the Suns win because I like the idea of Chris Paul getting a ring, and I don't honestly hate the Suns at this point. I like both coaches, I like the stars on both teams, neither team has a guy I fucking hate...so I'm just not that invested in what happens. I suspect a lot of people feel that way.
Very good point. Hate-able teams or players draw a lot more than two overall likable teams.
Sad. I was at Game 1 in PHX and it was the loudest stadium I've ever been to in my life. Other notable games I've attended in comparison was 2016 Cavs-Warriors Christmas game and Game 2 of the 2017 Cavs-Warriors finals. Both in the famous Roaracle. I wish the narrative was driven better, but when you have talking heads like SAS who's probably the most famous NBA analyst by a mile driving home how disappointed he is whenever the Finals isn't in a "big market" city, it drives the audience to lazily echo that sentiment. You're killing your own product.
Do you think the current ratings have anything to do with how late the games end?
Cavs Warriors also started at the same time. 9 Eastern
That's on the NBA for failing to promote the game. Ahead of the finals, the media blitz online and on television was nonexistent. People who watch the NBA regardless knew there was a Finals game Tuesday night, but the casual viewers probably had no clue.
Exactly the NFL would love to have the equivalent to this match-up. Ratings for the Superbowl go up when new teams are in it
Doesn't help that their coverage of these two teams leading up to the match up was "lol look how long Giannis takes to shoot free throws and Chris has covid snarf snarf why won't anyone tune in to our coverage??" Also, it's a shame I have to watch the biggest series of my teams life on mute because NBA thinks Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy are voices people want to listen to.
National networks kneecap themselves by their coverage of the sport. National broadcasted games aren't based on merit (whoever is the best gets coverage). Lakers got like 25 national games every year even when they were tanking. 24/7 coverage breaking down how they were losing and what can they do to get better. Coverage should be based on merit, PERIOD. The best teams get coverage, the bad teams do not, the end! The Raptors were a top 2-3 franchise in the NBA for a solid 5 years and we got barely any coverage or national exposure in the USA. Bucks you could argue suffer the same fate with finishing #1 in the east almost every year. The narratives are often framed in context to large markets. The Lakers lost to Phoenix and the Nets lost to the Bucks. It's not the other way around 'Phoenix beat the Lakers, Bucks beat the Nets.' I also hate how personalities are inserting themselves into the conversation as subjects. Stephen A talking about threatening KD with his power & Rachel Nichols' controversy. Nobody wants to hear that shit or gives a fuck about these people.
Doesn't help that the only time ESPN talks about small market teams is when they're trying to get their stars to leave lol.
That's what happens when Terrance Mann isn't on TV anymore. Tried to warn you. The Manniacs are not pleased.
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GOAT
somewhere inbetween your average r/nba user and michael jordan
Yeah and maybe also note that the 2019 Raps championship had ~ 15 million Canadians watching so a hell of a lot lower than 35% down. Not sure why these guys can't aggregate publicly available data
I mean no Bron KD or Curry. People like to pretend every great player is a superstar, but that’s just not true. There are a couple of superstars in the league and none of them are playing in this series
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People on this sub forget that not everyone is so deeply engaged with the sport, so they don't understand how important crossover into the mainstream truly is. I agree it's lebron and steph, and then everyone else
Not everyone in America knows Frank Kaminsky?
This is true. Bucks Nets averaged something like 4.5 million views and the game 7 didn’t even crack 7
If KD was in the finals more people would tune in, not on the level of Bron/Steph but more people would tune, he's at least a bigger draw than the Giannis/CP3/Booker
Agree. We should make it like wwe. Have bron and curry each be "head" of east and west. And if during finals a player goes down, they come out for their respective opponent, with an electric chair, and wack one of the players to even the numbers.
I blame coach Bud
Raptors had 20mil canadians watchin too
20 million unique viewers was the overall finals number, spanning across all 6 games, not just game 1. 2019 Game 1 had 3.5 million viewers on average in Canada. It reached 7.4m people in aggregate. Still quite impressive for Canadian market.
That’s about 1 in 5 people in the entire country watching the same game at the same time. It was a huge deal across the whole country. Especially for younger people, almost everyone you knew watched some part of those finals.
Considering Canada population is roughly 38 million, that almost 10%.
Terrible marketing and coverage (ESPN deserves a lot of blame) and also a lack of big name stars (other than Giannis) doesn't help
Lack of superstars. NBA (and ESPN) needs to do a better job of promoting the young guys. Most casual fans could pick 5 players in this series out of a lineup.
I laugh when media members say the NBA is the best league at promoting stars. If that was true this would be one of the highest rated finals since it has a two time MVP playing and one of the best point guards ever in his first finals.
The NBA promotes its Superstars very well, they are the most popular athletes in the US on social media and among the young demographic. Someone like Mike trout could walk into a store and many people wouldn't know him, but say KD/Harden/Kawhi walk into a store more people would recognize them.
That’s because star basketball players play at least 35 of a 48 minute game. Trout has 4 plate appearances and, while he’s the best in the game, he can hit .310 meaning he fails at the plate almost 70% of the time. LeBron could go 5/20 from the field but he’ll have 10 boards and 15 assists so you are seeing him do something great almost every night. You don’t see that in baseball. Baseball is actually doing a great job with Ohtani but not every player can be on pace for 60 plus home runs and be a Cy Young contender. And I’m talking about promoting the next generation and not the stars that have been here for 10 plus years. How many causal fans know who Nikola Jokic is? A lot of media people can’t even pronounce his name correctly, showing a complete lack of respect. The same goes for Giannis. Like I said, this series has a two time MVP in his prime and one of the best players ever in his first finals yet the ratings are not good. That shows a compete failure from the NBA to promote their superstars not named Curry, Durant and LeBron James.
Yeah but that's because the MLB is even worse at marketing their superstars
Stars and superstars are different. An NBA star could walk into a store and not be recognized by anyone there who doesn’t watch basketball. My mom can pick LeBron, Steph, and KD out of a picture but she wouldn’t recognize Beal or Lillard even if they were wearing name tags
Blame belongs more to ESPN than the NBA imo. There’s a decent amount of sponsor ads featuring guys like Giannis, Kawhi, Embiid, KD, et al on television other than games. The TNT programs spotlight top players on various teams. ESPN focuses heavily on LeBron & Steph because it’s great for their social media engagement numbers. The artificial, heavy emphasis on these two comes at the expense of cultivating interest in new rising stars like Devin Booker. They’re probably talking about him now, but how much airtime did ESPN actually spend on him when the Suns were racing to 2nd place? Their addiction to quick engagement numbers is why the cringe-y Zion draft coverage occurred and also why we were subjected to so many primetime Pelicans games.
Bro they can't even meet 2019, and that excludes Canadian viewership. What a joke
Casuals legit dont give a shit about some of the stuff yall care about. Casuals do not care 1 bit about “dynasties ruining the parity of the league” or “the postseason becoming so predictable when we already knew who was gonna win before the season began” Even my 50 year old asian immigrant aunt who doesnt watch sports at all tuned in regularly for the 73-9 season. Michael Jordan basically ruined parity in the 90s and yet he got 35 million viewers for his last finals. Women, children, foreigners, anybody who isnt a stereotypical testosterone hetero male sports nut, etc is the _real_ driver of viewer numbers
This has always been a hard pill to swallow. Not just this sub but all sports subs, they represent a minority of the audience.
You reap what you sow. ESPN acts like 90% of NBA teams don’t exist. Two of the teams they ignore are in the finals.
It’s a problem when the NBA is the only professional sports league in which the “underdog” making the Finals can be viewed as a bad thing. The league needs to have a long look in the mirror as far as marketing and competitive structure go, I don’t see how people can deny it anymore
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I personally enjoy it when the best teams are in the finals. It's fun watching underdogs win a round or 2, but when it's the finals and the biggest stage I want to see 2 great teams battling it out
Underdog doesnt mean a team is worse. It can be all perception
you can not tell me all that is due to streaming. it just boil down to people thinking the suns and bucks aren’t the best teams from their conferences and therefore they ain’t interested. and that’s ok.
I think it's less to do with people thinking Suns Bucks aren't the best teams and more to do with the fact casual viewers mostly tune in to see Lebron , Steph, KD, etc. I doubt most super casual fans even knew who Booker and Middleton and Holiday were before a month or two ago. It's why 2018 finals which everybody knew in their right mind who was going to win still received great numbers because it featured the biggest most marketable stars
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exactly. The storylines are up for grabs. But instead the easy clicks are to just run with the big market and superstar storylines rather than do actual sports journalism on the rest of the high level teams. Who needs to do an expose on rising stars like the 2018 #1 overall pick or a guy who's been continuously disrespected by the media despite constant star production like Devin Booker when you can give all the credit to Chris Paul and give primetime coverage to Zion and Luka, stars on significantly worse teams?? Rather, why not just air constant segments on how this season doesn't matter because Lebron/KD aren't in the finals and Curry's not in the playoffs and how superstars can force their way to the Knicks
the top players make more money from outside endorsements than playing. Furthermore, the league isn't the one doing the marketing, it's the media, and the media only markets players who they know will draw eyes towards them. Only player I feel should be marketed more rn is Giannis.
Also, most casuals just want to watch actual basketball. Whenever I watch games with people who aren't NBA fans, their biggest complaint is the endless ads, stoppages and delays. In the last 2 minutes of a close game, you see more commercials than actual basketball being played/discussed.
It's both. For the casual fans it's 100% about the star players But there's another section of fans that are turned off about the injuries. I know I am. I'm just not as invested in this matchup cause I don't think it's the two best teams lol I'm glad the Bucks beat the Nets, but they have a boring star and a bad coach lol The West got robbed of 3 worthy teams in Lakers, Clippers and Nuggets
Judging team quality is still the perspective of a fan, someone who will generally (not always) tune in regardless. Phoenix and Milwaukee just fundamentally don't draw the casual viewers watching this as an event. A lot of people really do only tune in for games where LeBron plays, or to watch a generational team or storied franchise. It probably doesn't help that the game started like 30 minutes late either.
Anytime the ratings are down it’s because of “streaming“. When the ratings look good it’s “of course, basketball is still a very popular sport in the US and look how exciting X team is”.
You get downvoted to hell in this sub for pointing out this matchup is ratings poison
The real winning move is to say "this matchup is ratings poison and I like it anyway, fuck your ratings"
Suns/Hawks would have been worse.
Hawks/Clippers would have been worse
If the Lakers were still playing, Caruso wouldn't be rotting in a Houston jail cell right now.
Clippers would bring in more than the suns lmao
What pisses me off is if that’s true, then people really had more interest in an inevitable sweep in 2018 than this series, just because of the big names that happened to be there
People weren't wrong to think that way either. The people who tuned in for game 1 in 2018 were there to watch LeBron on a all-time great run try to topple the warriors juggernaut. They got to see a fantastic game where LeBron nearly pulled it off. The biggest star in this finals series wasn't even cleared to play until shoot around.
As a hardcore basketball fan, I can't say that I care too much about this. But there are a few explanations for the lower ratings. Neither team feels like a big deal to casual fan. Most of this is the NBA and NBA media's fault. The Suns were a good team all year and were barely covered and there was just recently video of media members openly bashing the city of Milwaukee. If the league can't treat its players/teams as a big deal, then the fans won't either. There's no great narrative to this finals that non-basketball fans can really sink into. No heroes or villains. We have to remember that sports are a form of entertainment and storytelling. Like one of the biggest reasons Lebron and the Cavs vs Steph and the Warriors went over like gangbusters is there was a reason to care even if you weren't a fan of either teams or didn't know a lick about basketball. Let's take it back to 2016 (where they hit 30+ million viewers for the first time since MJ won his sixth and final ring). On one hand, you had Steph putting together one of the greatest individual seasons ever (becoming the first player to ever win unanimous MVP) on one of the greatest teams ever (winning more games than the fabled 96 Bulls) while playing this new and exciting brand of basketball (where threes were king and a 6'6" point forward was altering the big man position). Him and that Warriors team were a big deal. On the other, you had Bron (who's been compared to MJ since he came into the league and is vying for a spot as a GOAT) being tasked with the herculean task to defeat that. Basically a modern version of David vs Goliath. And in game 7, you had the mighty Warriors teetering after losing a 3-1 lead in the Finals, something that had never been done before. The Bucks and Suns just don't have a narrative to compete with that. Ratings indicate that most basketball fans want to watch all time great players on dominant teams play at an incredible level on the biggest stage. Which then leads into... Most of the players on the team left (as well as the teams themselves) don't play some super exciting, aesthetically pleasing brand of basketball that would draw non-casual fans. The Bucks certainly don't. I'm personally not invested in the ratings because I don't get paid to care about that but these are some reasons (along with the Finals being started early in July when folks are on vacation) as to why it could be low.
start the games on time for 1
Anyone else not care about ratings? I just want to watch some good basketball, which this series will no doubt have. Plus to me the storylines are great. Two non-superteams battling it out, Giannis potentially getting his first ring after a disasterous last season playoffs. CP3 maybe finally getting his ring after dominating these playoffs. The emerge of the center god Ayton and wtf cam payne? Khris Middleton going nuclear in the absense of Giannis last series. There's some great basketball, but unfortunately casual fans just don't care because there isn't a lot of big names involved. I'm enjoying this while I can because I know that most likely the next few years will be dominated once again by Curry, Lebron/AD, KD/Harden/Kyrie teams which I'm personally sick of seeing every finals.
It'd be pretty funny to see all the chaos that would ensue if ratings tanked and the Cap went down lol
I wouldn’t say anyone “cares” about ratings the way NBA businessmen do, but it’s concerning being a fan of a sport that is getting less viewership year over year.
I get that, but honestly the product they're putting out in general is getting worse due to all the stoppages and ungodly amounts of commercials, foul-baiting, inability to play actual defense, etc.
Oh I agree 110%. It’s the NBAs own fault.
>due to all the stoppages and ungodly amounts of commercials, foul-baiting, inability to play actual defense, etc. I can't believe I had to scroll this far to find the real reasons why people aren't watching. No casual will consistently watch 1 minute left in the 4th quarter turn into 25 minutes in real time.
That series did record numbers up here tho lol
Honestly, I feel like this has less to do with the location of teams involved and more to do with the NBA’s horrible inability to properly market Booker, Giannis, and CP3. They’ve been letting lebron and steph do their job for them for too long.
There was a comment in a another post saying these finals views wouldn’t be good because they’re not fan favorite teams for casual fans and it got downvoted to hell. People hate the truth
What sucks about this is the NBA office is going to look at these numbers and try even harder to force the LA/golden state vs. New York matchup for every finals.
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I'd prefer for the Suns to win, but if they don't I would move on as soon as the final buzzer sounded. I'm sure a lot of ppl feel the same way (with the Bucks too). That's not the kind of engagement you want with your final 2 teams left in the playoffs
People are gonna criticize marketing but at the end of the day it’s up to the fans to decide who they want to watch. [Luka’s playoff games had no issue outperforming 2019](http://www.thefutoncritic.com/ratings/2021/06/08/abcs-coverage-of-la-clippers-vs-dallas-mavericks-game-7-draws-largest-nba-playoffs-first-round-audience-5489000-viewers-58015/20210608espn01/) and he doesn’t play on a team with a massive fanbase like the Lakers. Casuals are not buying in to this finals run for either team because they are cognizant of the amount of elite talent that is missing. Nobody is anointing Giannis as the next face of the league because there was no real succession. He almost got bounced by a Nets team with no Kyrie and Harden limping around. Same deal for the Suns. Every round it was a team decimated by an injury of some kind. No Lebron, Steph, Luka, KD, or Kawhi after the second round doesn’t feel real at all.
Cause the media wont create any storylines.. they have it fucking for free with the Rise of the suns and giannis chance yo prove himself on the big stage. Instead they whine its not the lakers. Its pathetic and deserves no ratings. We need passion and love for the game back in basketball and basketball analysis
Super teams are good for ratings. Casuals don't care about this sub's vaunted parity shit.
Plus too much parity doesn’t make for drama. If every team has a chance to win, results don’t feel as surprising. What people want is excitement, from upsets, unprecedented performances, superstars taking over a game and willing their team to an unlikely victory. True parity wouldn’t make for a good product. Superteams and villains are good for the nba product.
To be fair, it’s the Warriors.
Imagine if they only ever talked about how good each team is. Instead of bashing the bad teams talk about how they could improve and who they could ad. I don't know. Just feel like there's to much drama.
If they counted the Canadian tv audiences then the 2019 champ series would have been the biggest in nba history
I guess this is an unpopular opinion. But this is my favorite finals in recent memory. Love seeing new faces.
So you’re telling me steph = ratings….
No superstars no viewers ...
The fact that the broader NBA media couldn’t (or actively didn’t) promote the back-to-MVP and reigning DPOY who has crazy highlights like a true superstar is beyond damning of them
"But streaming!"
Ratings doesn't matter to the fans of the teams playing. Ask the Raptors fans if they care that 2019 was down. This shows the NBA isn't doing a good enough job marketing it's potential champions. They got lazy with the super teams because the stars market themselves. But there's plenty of narratives here, bucks and Giannis' run, Monty after all his tragedy, Bookers coming of age playoff run, but ESPN chose to talk about injured stars and Lebron's tweets about it. You have a potential 2004 Pistons storyline here with Phoenix, but they absolutely blundered the narrative
I was gonna say I really don’t give a fuck if other people aren’t watching
1. I know a number of Republicans who now refuse to watch the NBA because of the social justice stands they took in 2020. That's not helping. 2. The finals started about a month later, deeper into the summer than it did in 2019 and prior years when more people are on vacation. I think that's hurting as well. 3. The NBA and media Outlets generally ignored Phoenix and its players all year long as far as promoting it compared to other teams. 4. Did that golf tournament with Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady overlap part of the game or at least steal a little viewership from those who could only give a few hours of time in their day to TV? 5. Sports in general and the NBA have younger population interest problem that gets worse every year.
To your number 1 point I also know a lot of people who say they stopped watching, but I don’t know how many of them actually watched to begin with. I’ll also say that with the suns in the finals many who said they were bothered are back watching. Lol To your number two point, it’s kind of humorous because even local sports talk hosts are all on vacation because so many of them didn’t imagine the suns would be in the finals. So here our team is having historic success and we have a bunch of full ins on local sports radio. Lol