Thunder-Pacers Finals. Worst for business?

[reddyplayerone]

Agreed! I said this in another thread as well.

"IDk why the NBA has issues with this. It's silly to. Me. It's all about marketing.

The NFL doesn't hv this isuee. Hell! Look at all the small markets in that league that draws well and very successful. Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers, Buffalo Bills, Pitt Steelers, Cincy, Bengals , New Orleans Saints, Minn Vikings, Carolina Panthers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Indy Colts, Jacksonville Jags, Detroit Lions, Denver Broncos, etc.

The big market NY Jets have been a joke for decades and haven't been in the playoffs for a decade and a half. Last won a Super Bowl in 1969!
Same for the Chicago Bears, they stink and haven't won a SB since 1985."

Idk anything about football really. To the extent that Tom Brady is one of the few names I know

Did football fans care when Tom Brady was dominating the sport in a massive market?

That's where the difference is here. Fans of other sports do not pretend that there's any inherent value to a small market winning the way they do in the NBA.

[CelticSooner]

I’ll be watching by I love basketball and don’t just care about stars like the casuals.

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

The NBA has the worst fans in American sports.

Y’all have been programmed to think of the Celtics or Lakers aren’t in the Finals, then it sucks.

No other league does this.

No other league is like “Welp, the Panthers and the Broncos are in the Super Bowl, imma skip this because it’s not a team from a big market.”

The NBA’s marketing has just royally screwed their business over by only putting a spotlight on the same 5 teams.

NBA culture is just so ass backwards.

Double edged sword; the NBA also has the most loyal fans in the world. i’ve seen fandom being passed from grandfathers to sons to grandsons— and you can guess it right, these are the old school Lakers, Bulls, Celtics fans since the 80s/90s and this is why we have lots of dumb/casual fans albeit loyal dumb/casual fans!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The NBA absolutely does not have the most loyal fans in the world, that’s wild to even think.

[damanick10]

Agreed! I said this in another thread as well.

"IDk why the NBA has issues with this. It's silly to. Me. It's all about marketing.

The NFL doesn't hv this isuee. Hell! Look at all the small markets in that league that draws well and very successful. Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers, Buffalo Bills, Pitt Steelers, Cincy, Bengals , New Orleans Saints, Minn Vikings, Carolina Panthers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Indy Colts, Jacksonville Jags, Detroit Lions, Denver Broncos, etc.

The big market NY Jets have been a joke for decades and haven't been in the playoffs for a decade and a half. Last won a Super Bowl in 1969!
Same for the Chicago Bears, they stink and haven't won a SB since 1985."

Idk anything about football really. To the extent that Tom Brady is one of the few names I know

Did football fans care when Tom Brady was dominating the sport in a massive market?

That's where the difference is here. Fans of other sports do not pretend that there's any inherent value to a small market winning the way they do in the NBA.

NFL fans don't care about markets. They care about watching fun teams with great players.

[KGDirkTD_Fan]

Who cares. They're growing their salary cap by 10% next season, have plenty of sponsorships/endorsements, and expensive ticket prices. They can survive multiple small market finals.

Until the NBA announces they have to cut the salary cap year over year because Hali/SGA has been winning too many titles, there's 0 concern...even then, folks remember when a max contract was $20 million...they'll be fine.

[Raps in 4]

Fans are going to roll up in tractors. There won't be any celebrities in the crowd. 1,000 people are going to watch the games. NBA is going to lose $10 billion and the league is going to shut down.

[TravisScott55]

Whats good for the NBA is knowing that any team has a shot to win it all

[Wallace_Wallace]

If ESPN doesn’t know how to market teams maybe another network such as NBC can start hosting the finals instead? That way Stephen A Smith and his crew can stay in LA or NY year round.

[reddyplayerone]

Whats good for the NBA is knowing that any team has a shot to win it all

That is quite literally not even how we got here so idk why anyone thinks this and I keep asking and nobody will answer

[reddyplayerone]

If ESPN doesn’t know how to market teams maybe another network such as NBC can start hosting the finals instead? That way Stephen A Smith and his crew can stay in LA or NY year round.

I think it's weird that people seem to genuinely think that a show like First Take is supposed to be a commercial for the NBA or that that would be a good thing in any context

[TravisScott55]

Whats good for the NBA is knowing that any team has a shot to win it all

That is quite literally not even how we got here so idk why anyone thinks this and I keep asking and nobody will answer

huh

[Infinite Llamas]

NBA media is trash, trash and more trash.

It’s their fault that people only care about 3-4 teams and sites like ESPN that cater as well.

I remember in the early 90’s kids were repping Hornets merch because it looked cool and LJ and Zo were up and comers. Seattle was popular with Kemp and GP. Minnesota with KG and Marbury were a big deal.

And who did the Lakers have before they got Shaq?
Anthony Peeler? Eddie Jones? Sedale Threatt?

Nobody cared about the Celtics when Dino Radja was the guy there.

Point is the league was doing ok with Jordan and smaller
Franchises that had a cool factor to them.

[Ugly0598]

NBA media is trash, trash and more trash.

It’s their fault that people only care about 3-4 teams and sites like ESPN that cater as well.

I remember in the early 90’s kids were repping Hornets merch because it looked cool and LJ and Zo were up and comers. Seattle was popular with Kemp and GP. Minnesota with KG and Marbury were a big deal.

And who did the Lakers have before they got Shaq?
Anthony Peeler? Eddie Jones? Sedale Threatt?

Nobody cared about the Celtics when Dino Radja was the guy there.

Point is the league was doing ok with Jordan and smaller
Franchises that had a cool factor to them.

I don’t see what's cool about the Indiana Pacers. They have a lot of unrelatable players. They aren’t really inspiring.

The Caitlin Clark & Angel Reese / Indiana Fever stuff gets forced sometimes too.. it just seems robotic.

[jkvonny]

Agreed! I said this in another thread as well.

"IDk why the NBA has issues with this. It's silly to. Me. It's all about marketing.

The NFL doesn't hv this isuee. Hell! Look at all the small markets in that league that draws well and very successful. Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers, Buffalo Bills, Pitt Steelers, Cincy, Bengals , New Orleans Saints, Minn Vikings, Carolina Panthers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Indy Colts, Jacksonville Jags, Detroit Lions, Denver Broncos, etc.

The big market NY Jets have been a joke for decades and haven't been in the playoffs for a decade and a half. Last won a Super Bowl in 1969!
Same for the Chicago Bears, they stink and haven't won a SB since 1985."

Idk anything about football really. To the extent that Tom Brady is one of the few names I know

Did football fans care when Tom Brady was dominating the sport in a massive market?

That's where the difference is here. Fans of other sports do not pretend that there's any inherent value to a small market winning the way they do in the NBA.

TBF, it didn't hurt that Brady played for a major market (Boston/New England Patriots) before finishing off in Tampa Bay.

The Pats stunk before and after Brady so IDK. Lol

[jkvonny]

If ESPN doesn’t know how to market teams maybe another network such as NBC can start hosting the finals instead? That way Stephen A Smith and his crew can stay in LA or NY year round.

TNT and NBC are great at that. CBS and TBS as well way back in the days.
E$PN/ABC not so much.

I'm glad that NBC is coming back!

[jkvonny]

NBA media is trash, trash and more trash.

It’s their fault that people only care about 3-4 teams and sites like ESPN that cater as well.

I remember in the early 90’s kids were repping Hornets merch because it looked cool and LJ and Zo were up and comers. Seattle was popular with Kemp and GP. Minnesota with KG and Marbury were a big deal.

And who did the Lakers have before they got Shaq?
Anthony Peeler? Eddie Jones? Sedale Threatt?

Nobody cared about the Celtics when Dino Radja was the guy there.

Point is the league was doing ok with Jordan and smaller
Franchises that had a cool factor to them.

This!!

Even the Utah Jazz were dope back then lol. Stockton/Malone. NBC loved them.

He'll, even those Webber/Vlade Sacramento Kings. NBC loved the hell out of them.

[Mamba81p]

The 70s had the most parity and nba was on the brink of extinction. The league grew exponentially in the 80s when 2 teams dominated and the peak was in the 90s when we had 1 dynasty. Recently the most viewed finals were when the same teams met 4 times in a row.

I think we want the playoffs to be competitive and we didn really get that in the last 3 years. Sure we had different winners every year but the series were boring and in the last 3 years at least almost everyone had 1 huge favorite from the beginning. In 2023 and 2024 nuggets and Celtics destroyed the Competition and okc seems to be on a similar path.

We don’t want the 2017 again when conference finals were pretty much over after game 1s but I don’t think it matters who wins and who is playing in the finals as long as the playoffs is competitive.
If we can get a 97 or 98 playoffs again that would be ideal no matter if a team goes for 5th-6th title in 8 years.

[Sofia]

I could not give less of a **** about whether a particular market is good for NBA business.

If the players and owners got paid half as much as they currently do, it’s still the best basketball product in the world. How many players in the league at the moment would be playing different sports if they only got paid half what they do now?

Endless growth is not sustainable and **** over the consumer.

[Potential]

All ESPN is going to do is complain about the market size of OKC and Indiana. The NBA needs to do what the MLB did and run far away from ESPN. It's one of the worst networks in the world

[Dominator83]

Lol here we go. NBA fans are the worst... only fans who are obsessed about dumb ass TV ratings instead of the actual game.

And I hope the ratings smash! So maybe we can end this "market size" nonsense and Silver will finally see with his own two eyes that he doesn't need LeBron and the Lakers to draw ratings