Game 1 of the Finals posts horrific TV ratings

[KGDirkTD_Fan]

I don't know anything about football/NFL. But how is ESPN's coverage of football? Since many people say that in football big/small markets doesn't matter as much and the league market all the the teams, I would assume that ESPN coverage reflects that and that they are more neutral and professional than in basketball? If so, why can't the same network do the same in basketball?

The NFL markets teams. It's less about the individual player. Teams like Dallas, Green Bay, and Pittsburgh have large fanbases across the country.

Football in America has more built-in tribalism among fans. It's ingrained in the culture. The same is true for College Football. You're more connected to a local team or university.

The NBA markets stars. LeBron, MJ, Kobe, etc. It's less about the overall team. More about focusing on star players & their impact.

NFL invested in all of its markets in this manner since day 1. They own 2 days of the week (Sunday & Monday). The NBA is a relatively young sport compared to MLB and NFL and to be fair the modern version of the league has only existed in this manner since post-Merger. They went all in on the superstar driven league for better or for worse and they will have great years like they did through Magic, Bird, Jordan, LeBron etc and bad years where there is no successor. They can't turn this into a team driven league over night.

[Saints14]

Just speaking for myself, I have to pick my battles both with my wife (who does not want basketball on the TV every night for 2 months straight) and my sleep schedule being on the east coast (been making an effort to get to bed reasonably early for health reasons) so I am not watching every finals game start to finish these days. Live sports has screwed over east coasters forever so that’s not new, but what is this nonsense about only playing late on weeknights? They’re skipping over Friday and Saturday and not even playing during the day on Sunday, so yeah I’m gonna skip the game or only watch the first half unless I feel like it’s a really important one. And maybe that’s where this finals is different, with OKC being such a heavy favorite that people wont seriously tune in unless Indy makes it interesting (which maybe they will!). This is always the difficulty of having a best of 7 format vs one winner take all game where anything can happen

[Bornstellar]

How does this acccoub t for streaming?

TV ratings aren't as important as they used to be. That just means boomers in the US have tuned out. Streaming and international markets mean a lot more now, too

It's 2025. We need to stop pretending that live cable TV ratings mean anything

This. Someone get us those streaming numbers.

Streaming viewers are included in the number of people watching in the ratings. So those ratings numbers include the people that are streaming in whatever way, and not just live TV veiwers.

Yes but people consume media in many different ways these days. I doubt these numbers account for the millions of people streaming illegally, the people who are at get togethers or events with hundreds of people watching on a couple TVs, people watching the game cast online, watching via social media highlights, etc. My point is just because people aren't watching it live on TV doesn't mean it's not drawing a lot of attention

[levon]

How does this acccoub t for streaming?

TV ratings aren't as important as they used to be. That just means boomers in the US have tuned out. Streaming and international markets mean a lot more now, too

It's 2025. We need to stop pretending that live cable TV ratings mean anything

This. Someone get us those streaming numbers.

Streaming viewers are included in the number of people watching in the ratings. So those ratings numbers include the people that are streaming in whatever way, and not just live TV veiwers.

Yes but people consume media in many different ways these days. I doubt these numbers account for the millions of people streaming illegally, the people who are at get togethers or events with hundreds of people watching on a couple TVs, people watching the game cast online, watching via social media highlights, etc. My point is just because people aren't watching it live on TV doesn't mean it's not drawing a lot of attention

Those views are ambient every year. Unless you think more uncounted people gathered together to watch Thunder Pacers or more people illegally streamed Thunder Pacers than years past, the fact of the matter is viewership is trending down. There's certainly no evidence that it's going up, and you basically have to make up evidence to claim it's staying the same.

[levon]

Also, these games are available on ABC. Like they're free over the air if you buy a ten dollar antenna. In 4K. If the big problem with NBA viewership is inaccesibility, you should see year-to-year Finals numbers shoot up relative to season ratings or prior rounds.

[Myth]

In addition to poor hype, I’m with the No Dunks guys about how pathetic the fanfare was for the game. Anybody flipping through the channels spent be able to visually notice it was an NBA Finals game, which could lose out on some random casuals. That’s on both the NBA and ABC.

[levon]

In addition to poor hype, I’m with the No Dunks guys about how pathetic the fanfare was for the game. Anybody flipping through the channels spent be able to visually notice it was an NBA Finals game, which could lose out on some random casuals. That’s on both the NBA and ABC.

Listening to Breen Richard and Doris is like watching paint dry, too. I watched the end of the game with the TV muted and didn't feel like I missed anything.

[Myth]

In addition to poor hype, I’m with the No Dunks guys about how pathetic the fanfare was for the game. Anybody flipping through the channels spent be able to visually notice it was an NBA Finals game, which could lose out on some random casuals. That’s on both the NBA and ABC.

Listening to Breen Richard and Doris is like watching paint dry, too. I watched the end of the game with the TV muted and didn't feel like I missed anything.

Ratings are mostly about drawing casuals, and I don’t think casual viewers would know enough about which broadcast team they like or not until they’ve already committed to watching, so I don’t that scared anybody off. I think the bigger issue was not tuning in at all, and a smaller percentage skipping over the game forgetting that it is an important game. They put all that effort into the NBA Cup to make it stand out, which even resulted in my wife pausing when she saw the courts and said “what is this?”, but she wouldn’t know it was an NBA Finals game if I didn’t point out why I’m not leaving my seat unless it is a commercial.

[Tim_Hardawayy]

This will be a very unpopular take for many posters here, but I think the NBA shot itself in the foot badly getting as political as it did during the covid years, and it might never recover from that.

It's more popular than you're letting on given how much it's in our daily discourse. But it's also a very bad take.

The NBA media rights are worth more today than they have ever been. The record new deal was signed last year and starts next year. Did the NBA lose some eyeballs? Maybe. Did it hurt them? Clearly no.

I’ll only respond to this post since I don’t want to derail this and there’s good conversation going in this thread. But it’s definitely unpopular as almost every response to it is dismissing it, if this were reddit I’d have been downvoted and nobody would even be able to read it.

To address two other points, no this didn’t start this year. But ratings haven’t recovered to pre covid levels either. And yes streaming and other things also play a role, I just think it’s ignorant to assume that this didn’t.

And to the idea that it’s just some niche crowd…I flatly disagree and I think if anything, what the NBA was doing was actually pandering to the more niche extreme crowd. And turning off moderates who don’t want that involved in sports. But again, it’s an opinion, and it’s going to be unpopular because a large amount of posters here are in that niche extreme crowd.

That’s all, don’t want to derail so I’ll just read from here.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

The NBA broadcasting partners are largely to blame for this as well. You have podcasts, shows and personalities on TV saying nonstop that this won't be competitive in addition to there being small markets.

It's funny too, because the Pacers actually play an entertaining casual friendly brand of basketball but the NBA doesn't know how to market anything other than stars and their broadcast partners borderline hate the sport.

[Raps in 4]

This will be a very unpopular take for many posters here, but I think the NBA shot itself in the foot badly getting as political as it did during the covid years, and it might never recover from that.

It's more popular than you're letting on given how much it's in our daily discourse. But it's also a very bad take.

The NBA media rights are worth more today than they have ever been. The record new deal was signed last year and starts next year. Did the NBA lose some eyeballs? Maybe. Did it hurt them? Clearly no.

I’ll only respond to this post since I don’t want to derail this and there’s good conversation going in this thread. But it’s definitely unpopular as almost every response to it is dismissing it, if this were reddit I’d have been downvoted and nobody would even be able to read it.

To address two other points, no this didn’t start this year. But ratings haven’t recovered to pre covid levels either. And yes streaming and other things also play a role, I just think it’s ignorant to assume that this didn’t.

And to the idea that it’s just some niche crowd…I flatly disagree and I think if anything, what the NBA was doing was actually pandering to the more niche extreme crowd. And turning off moderates who don’t want that involved in sports. But again, it’s an opinion, and it’s going to be unpopular because a large amount of posters here are in that niche extreme crowd.

That’s all, don’t want to derail so I’ll just read from here.

I can assure you that nobody remembers or cares about what the NBA said or did 5 years ago. Nobody cared back then either. Normal people don't stop watching a sport because of a league's stance on vaccines (which, by the way, is the same stance every sports league on the planet took). That's **** idiotic.

The people that are still talking about this were never watching the NBA to begin with.

[NZB2323]

I know people mock because we are all watching. But this stuff matters. TV money subsidizes the game and the stakeholders aren't going to like taking a lot less which means they will pass the costs on to us whether it be increased ticket pricing or a streaming service you are paying for.

We should want high ratings so that TV and advertisers are paying the costs, not us.

I think it’s the opposite. If fan interest in the NBA decreases then ticket prices could decrease.

[Meat]

The NBA broadcasting partners are largely to blame for this as well. You have podcasts, shows and personalities on TV saying nonstop that this won't be competitive in addition to there being small markets.

It's funny too, because the Pacers actually play an entertaining casual friendly brand of basketball but the NBA doesn't know how to market anything other than stars and their broadcast partners borderline hate the sport.

so they should lie?

[NoDopeOnSundays]

The NBA broadcasting partners are largely to blame for this as well. You have podcasts, shows and personalities on TV saying nonstop that this won't be competitive in addition to there being small markets.

It's funny too, because the Pacers actually play an entertaining casual friendly brand of basketball but the NBA doesn't know how to market anything other than stars and their broadcast partners borderline hate the sport.

so they should lie?

It's already competitive

[Raps in 4]

The NBA broadcasting partners are largely to blame for this as well. You have podcasts, shows and personalities on TV saying nonstop that this won't be competitive in addition to there being small markets.

It's funny too, because the Pacers actually play an entertaining casual friendly brand of basketball but the NBA doesn't know how to market anything other than stars and their broadcast partners borderline hate the sport.

so they should lie?

Why would saying that a series will be competitive be considered lying? It's literally already a competitive series.

And why should broadcasters even be mentioning market size? Everyone knows OKC and Indy are small cities (it's not like city populations are a **** secret). That's completely irrelevant to the product on the court. NFL shows never mention that KC is a small city when the Chiefs are in the SB. I don't ever hear them talking about what fabulous cities LA, NYC, and Miami are.

[Duke4life831]

I think it’s a mix of a couple things.

#1. The NBA has god awful marketing. The NBA promotes big markets and big stars. And the NBA seems to not think of a player as a “star” until after a few deep runs in the playoffs and the casual fan sees them more because of the playoff runs. These Finals are kind of the worst case scenario for the NBA. No big markets and no recognizable names. I get SGA is the MVP, but this is the first time casual sports fans are actually seeing him. And I’m sure from here on out, he will get promoted like crazy. But that won’t help these finals.

Kind of reminds me of Jokic during that 2023 championship run. He was a 2x MVP at the time and we had ESPN sideline reporters during the playoffs talking about how blown away they are watching Jokic for the first time…

#2. The NBA market (in the US) is not as big as it once was. Whether that’s because of politics, regular season, heavy reliance on the 3 and so on.

I’ll use myself and friend group as an anecdotal example. Since middle school I’ve been a die hard basketball fan, all my friends were basketball fans. I’m kind of the key demographic for the NBA and sports in general. 34, lifelong sports fan, with lots of miscellaneous spending opportunity. My friends fall into the same group. I mean I’ve been a mod on this place multiple times. I was a very “pro league pass” guy on here for years. I stopped buying league pass and didn’t watch a single entire game during the regular season. I talked to a buddy the other day, he didn’t even know the Finals were about to start. I don’t have a single buddy that watches the NBA anymore. But my phone blows up every Sunday during the NFL season from them.

And for those saying these old cable numbers don’t mean anything because everyone streams. Ratings nowadays include essentially all legal streaming. And for comparison, the NFL has no issue with getting the younger generation to watch games and be part of their ratings.

[greekman]

donovan mitchell, lillard and tatum were injured. that's the only reason why pacers are in the finals.

[Mamba81p]

Illegal streaming numbers don’t matter because they are not monetized and that number is not that big anyway.

[Cactus Jack]

I’ll use myself and friend group as an anecdotal example. Since middle school I’ve been a die hard basketball fan, all my friends were basketball fans. I’m kind of the key demographic for the NBA and sports in general. 34, lifelong sports fan, with lots of miscellaneous spending opportunity. My friends fall into the same group. I mean I’ve been a mod on this place multiple times. I was a very “pro league pass” guy on here for years. I stopped buying league pass and didn’t watch a single entire game during the regular season. I talked to a buddy the other day, he didn’t even know the Finals were about to start. I don’t have a single buddy that watches the NBA anymore. But my phone blows up every Sunday during the NFL season from them.

Same boat.

The NBA regular season is tedious. The casual fan is not going to stay tuned in on a regular basis.

I find that the NFL doesn't have that problem.

[BodieB]

I don't think a competitive series is going to matter. The games themselves may be great, but there just isn't sizzle to the teams playing. It's like the Spurs/Pistons finals years ago.