ATL - Bane to Orlando for 4 FRP+

[ReasonablySober]

Ratings don't matter.

[MickeyDavis]

The largest markets, Knicks last won a championship 52 years ago. Bulls, 27 years ago. Lakers 15 years ago (I dismiss the fluky bubble), Philly 42 years ago. And a huge TV deal just signed. The league is doing just fine and the largest markets are not dominating at all.

[raferfenix]

Knicks firing Thibs for the privilege of giving up assets for Jason Kidd is some serious Isiah Thomas level Jimmy Dolan ish.

Could easily see Kidd driving this behind the scenes to get out of Dallas.

Also Kidd playing up Giannis wanting to play under him at MSG.

To their credit, even if the Knicks don’t see a trade this offseason, it’d be well worth preparing a year in advance if they see a Giannis sweepstakes next summer.

[MikeIsGood]

Agree with the general point, but I don't think you can write-off the bay area, Boston, and Miami as non-large markets. Just because it's not top-3 doesn't mean they aren't ratings hogs.

With smaller markets, what I suspect we see is more people tuning in post-game 1 now that they saw how good of a game it was.

[VooDoo7]

The largest markets, Knicks last won a championship 52 years ago. Bulls, 27 years ago. Lakers 15 years ago (I dismiss the fluky bubble), Philly 42 years ago. And a huge TV deal just signed. The league is doing just fine and the largest markets are not dominating at all.

Yeah, but a NYK-LAL Finals is still gonna bring in a lot more money than IND-OKC, no? And that's all Silver cares about.

[MickeyDavis]

Finals ratings have gone down every year for 10 years. That doesn't include the bubble year (even with the Lakers it had tiny ratings) or the 2021 Finals with the Bucks (Finals were held in late July). In 2015 it peaked with 11.6 million average viewers. And Celtics/Mavs last year averaged only half of that, 5.8 million viewers. Despite that massive decline the league signed a record 11 year TV deal. NYK/LAL Finals would have ESPN creaming themselves but in the big picture Finals ratings and who is in the Finals don't really have an effect on the TV deals and TV deals are what drives the league. It doesn't help that there hasn't been a game 7 in 9 years. Game 7's lift up the overall ratings of course.

[Plossum]

Do the ratings include streaming numbers?

[Frank Nova]

I’d personally like to see a more playoff brand of basketball throughout the regular season by the officials. Make players work a little harder to score points and get away from glorifying and misconstruing lazy ass defense with incredible offense. The players would just complain about the 82 game season being too much of a grind with injuries and what not, but I think you’d win some viewers back with a more physical style of officiating all year round and not just the post season.

[MickeyDavis]

I’d personally like to see a more playoff brand of basketball throughout the regular season by the officials. Make players work a little harder to score points and get away from glorifying and misconstruing lazy ass defense with incredible offense. The players would just complain about the 82 game season being too much of a grind with injuries and what not, but I think you’d win some viewers back with a more physical style of officiating all year round and not just the post season.

Absolutely. Regular season they call every little touch foul. It's ridiculous. Officiate the regular season as they do the playoffs.

Players play with a huge increase in intensity in the playoffs and while it would be great to see that in the regular season, it's unreasonable to expect that over the stupidly long 6 month 82 game season. In no other league is there such a a difference in play between the regular season and the playoffs.

But the playoffs and regular season need to be officiated the same way.

[BigO]

I’d personally like to see a more playoff brand of basketball throughout the regular season by the officials. Make players work a little harder to score points and get away from glorifying and misconstruing lazy ass defense with incredible offense. The players would just complain about the 82 game season being too much of a grind with injuries and what not, but I think you’d win some viewers back with a more physical style of officiating all year round and not just the post season.

Absolutely. Regular season they call every little touch foul. It's ridiculous. Officiate the regular season as they do the playoffs.

Players play with a huge increase in intensity in the playoffs and while it would be great to see that in the regular season, it's unreasonable to expect that over the stupidly long 6 month 82 game season. In no other league is there such a a difference in play between the regular season and the playoffs.

But the playoffs and regular season need to be officiated the same way.

The NBA is way too soft. As I mentioned a while back, the level of physicality in the fifties, sixties and seventies was so much greater. And you didn't have the three point line for much of that time and so the action was much closer to the basket. More players in a smaller space.

And I have Giannis who agrees that more physicality should be allowed. It's his #1 criticism of the league.

[GoldenAntlers]

I'm ready for the NBA to make league pass an actual league pass (pass as in access, not pass as in 'no thanks').

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

I’d personally like to see a more playoff brand of basketball throughout the regular season by the officials. Make players work a little harder to score points and get away from glorifying and misconstruing lazy ass defense with incredible offense. The players would just complain about the 82 game season being too much of a grind with injuries and what not, but I think you’d win some viewers back with a more physical style of officiating all year round and not just the post season.

Absolutely. Regular season they call every little touch foul. It's ridiculous. Officiate the regular season as they do the playoffs.

Players play with a huge increase in intensity in the playoffs and while it would be great to see that in the regular season, it's unreasonable to expect that over the stupidly long 6 month 82 game season. In no other league is there such a a difference in play between the regular season and the playoffs.

But the playoffs and regular season need to be officiated the same way.

The NBA is way too soft. As I mentioned a while back, the level of physicality in the fifties, sixties and seventies was so much greater. And you didn't have the three point line for much of that time and so the action was much closer to the basket. More players in a smaller space.

And I have Giannis who agrees that more physicality should be allowed. It's his #1 criticism of the league.

allowing guys to beat each other up in the reg season is a horrible idea you two. for what exactly?

[FlagsFlyForever]

Ratings don't matter.

Ratings are tremendously important and hopefully this is a wake up call to ESPN on how they cover the NBA.

[ReasonablySober]

Ratings don't matter.

Ratings are tremendously important and hopefully this is a wake up call to ESPN on how they cover the NBA.

I listen to plenty of sports business pods. They don't matter in the least.

[FlagsFlyForever]

Ratings don't matter.

Ratings are tremendously important and hopefully this is a wake up call to ESPN on how they cover the NBA.

I listen to plenty of sports business pods. They don't matter in the least.

Live broadcast viewership is the single biggest factor in determining the long-term health of the NBA.

TV rights deals are the largest revenue stream for the NBA (more than ticket sales, merchandise, etc.). The reason sports leagues like the NBA keep getting record television rights contracts is because networks trust them to continue to attract viewers while overall TV viewership declines. If you want to be more specific, we can discuss demographic data which is more important to advertisers than overall ratings.

[ReasonablySober]

Ratings are tremendously important and hopefully this is a wake up call to ESPN on how they cover the NBA.

I listen to plenty of sports business pods. They don't matter in the least.

Live broadcast viewership is the single biggest factor in determining the long-term health of the NBA.

TV rights deals are the largest revenue stream for the NBA (more than ticket sales, merchandise, etc.). The reason sports leagues like the NBA keep getting record television rights contracts is because networks trust them to continue to attract viewers while overall TV viewership declines. If you want to be more specific, we can discuss demographic data which is more important to advertisers than overall ratings.

The TV deal is locked in for the next decade. TV ratings affect nothing.

[Profound23]

Ok, I want seven games. That was a great game and this is just an interesting case study. Time for me to put the beef behind us and just enjoy good basketball.

[FlagsFlyForever]

I listen to plenty of sports business pods. They don't matter in the least.

Live broadcast viewership is the single biggest factor in determining the long-term health of the NBA.

TV rights deals are the largest revenue stream for the NBA (more than ticket sales, merchandise, etc.). The reason sports leagues like the NBA keep getting record television rights contracts is because networks trust them to continue to attract viewers while overall TV viewership declines. If you want to be more specific, we can discuss demographic data which is more important to advertisers than overall ratings.

The TV deal is locked in for the next decade. TV ratings affect nothing.

The TV deal was secured because of strong TV ratings in the past. There will be another rights deal in the future the league will negotiate.

[KidA24]

Live broadcast viewership is the single biggest factor in determining the long-term health of the NBA.

TV rights deals are the largest revenue stream for the NBA (more than ticket sales, merchandise, etc.). The reason sports leagues like the NBA keep getting record television rights contracts is because networks trust them to continue to attract viewers while overall TV viewership declines. If you want to be more specific, we can discuss demographic data which is more important to advertisers than overall ratings.

The TV deal is locked in for the next decade. TV ratings affect nothing.

The TV deal was secured because of strong TV ratings in the past. There will be another rights deal in the future the league will negotiate.

Number of viewers is wildly different from revenue generated per viewer multiplied by number of viewers

[jschligs]

OKC lost game 1 to the Nuggets and pulled it out, I still think they do as I think they'll take one in Indy.