The NBA Had Back to Back Jokic vs. Wembanyama Games and Did Nothing With It

[BigGargamel]

Seriously, it boggles my mind. You have the current best vs. the future best. Two games in two nights. Friday and Saturday night, no less. And you do nothing to promote the games? Neither on NBA TV? Not even a real peep about either game?

Even worse, both games were tremendous. Those two superstars put on an absolute show. Every fan of the NBA should have been watching. But nothing.

Not surprisingly, ESPN didn't talk about either game. Why interrupt their non stop coverage of some stupid Jimmy Butler drama?

This was one of the best chances the NBA had to transition from the LeBron/Curry/Durant era they can't get past, and they completely fumbled it.

Say what you want about the NFL, but they would have been all over this opportunity.

Enjoy your continued tanking ratings, fellas.

[cgf]

As somebody who has forced a lot of non-NBA fans to watch games over the past few years, Wemby really does capture casual's attention. Soon enough we'll see so much of him folks will complain about ESPN being the Wemby channel

[Ryoga Hibiki]

The US media doesn't treat the NBA as a league with global relevance, that's the issue

[SkyHook]

Seriously, it boggles my mind. You have the current best vs. the future best. Two games in two nights. Friday and Saturday night, no less. And you do nothing to promote the games? Neither on NBA TV? Not even a real peep about either game?

Even worse, both games were tremendous. Those two superstars put on an absolute show. Every fan of the NBA should have been watching. But nothing.

Not surprisingly, ESPN didn't talk about either game. Why interrupt their non stop coverage of some stupid Jimmy Butler drama?

This was one of the best chances the NBA had to transition from the LeBron/Curry/Durant era they can't get past, and they completely fumbled it.

Say what you want about the NFL, but they would have been all over this opportunity.

Enjoy your continued tanking ratings, fellas.

Even if this was a decision by the broadcast partners, Silver should have been pushing them to make this a big deal. Unforced errors by the league.

[Ruma85]

Is the league & the u.s media but-hurt that the international players are taking over the league, i mean seriously the game is called basketball not NBA. Such a missed opportunity.

[schnakenpopanz]

It is because they aren't popular in the US.
The NBA is misssin huge opportunities worldwide.
Here in Germany primetime free TV switched to doubleheaders in NFL on Sundays for Free.
It is in the prime time of the schedule and most of the peope I know are watching the games.

NBA is a "exclusive" product. It had the best superstars for years to come, but most of them were US figures (MJ, Kobe, Shaq, KD, Curry etc.) Now the best players are non US. And you can not market Jokic vs Wemby to the avg viewer.
They treid it with Zion (failed)
They trie dit with the Ball saga (failed)
Even the Boston Championship was unsexy as hell.

[reddyplayerone]

Denver fans want to make Fetch happen so bad but it's not gonna happen

[BigGargamel]

Seriously, it boggles my mind. You have the current best vs. the future best. Two games in two nights. Friday and Saturday night, no less. And you do nothing to promote the games? Neither on NBA TV? Not even a real peep about either game?

Even worse, both games were tremendous. Those two superstars put on an absolute show. Every fan of the NBA should have been watching. But nothing.

Not surprisingly, ESPN didn't talk about either game. Why interrupt their non stop coverage of some stupid Jimmy Butler drama?

This was one of the best chances the NBA had to transition from the LeBron/Curry/Durant era they can't get past, and they completely fumbled it.

Say what you want about the NFL, but they would have been all over this opportunity.

Enjoy your continued tanking ratings, fellas.

Even if this was a decision by the broadcast partners, Silver should have been pushing them to make this a big deal. Unforced errors by the league.

The NBA and Silver have spent countless resources bringing the NBA to a global stage, and now that those players are in his league and dominating, they don't market them.

Even the MLB marketed Ohtani. I mean, that's all they market, but they market the hell out of him.

I don't think it's really a foreign vs. USA thing to the degree that a lot of people think it is. It's just, they've spent so long on the Lebrons and Curry's, they just don't know how to move on to the next generation.

[UcanUwill]

I can understand Jokic not being popular in US (tho he had most all star votes so idk), but Victor has to be.

[Snake3]

Yeah. They really did missed out on expanding the game with this one.

They could've had a lot of ppl in France, Serbia and of course some places in the US to watch the game.

Jokic vs Wemby was great. Both games were close too.

The nba is messing up promoting their current and future stars. It seems like they are trying to ride the past stars as long as they can.

But it's not just the league's fault. It could be boardcasters partners fault too. I don't think they have enough faith with the current and future stars yet. It seems like the league is going to be in trouble once LeBron, Curry and KD retires. It doesn't seem to be an US player that will be as popular as those guys right now. Let alone the best players in the league. Those are all international players for the foreseeable future.

It doesn't help that Jokic doesn't want to be the face of the league. Wemby and Giannis seem like they are more willing to accept that title. SGA and Luka too.

OKC and Bos is only on NBATV I think. Should be on national tv. But it'll be competing with the NFL I guess. Still man. I feel the lack of exposure of the current stars is hurting the nba.

[Ruma85]

Seriously, it boggles my mind. You have the current best vs. the future best. Two games in two nights. Friday and Saturday night, no less. And you do nothing to promote the games? Neither on NBA TV? Not even a real peep about either game?

Even worse, both games were tremendous. Those two superstars put on an absolute show. Every fan of the NBA should have been watching. But nothing.

Not surprisingly, ESPN didn't talk about either game. Why interrupt their non stop coverage of some stupid Jimmy Butler drama?

This was one of the best chances the NBA had to transition from the LeBron/Curry/Durant era they can't get past, and they completely fumbled it.

Say what you want about the NFL, but they would have been all over this opportunity.

Enjoy your continued tanking ratings, fellas.

Even if this was a decision by the broadcast partners, Silver should have been pushing them to make this a big deal. Unforced errors by the league.

The NBA and Silver have spent countless resources bringing the NBA to a global stage, and now that those players are in his league and dominating, they don't market them.

Even the MLB marketed Ohtani. I mean, that's all they market, but they market the hell out of him.

I don't think it's really a foreign vs. USA thing to the degree that a lot of people think it is. It's just, they've spent so long on the Lebrons and Curry's, they just don't know how to move on to the next generation.

If a multi billion league like the NBA doesn't know how to move on, then they obviously failed in hiring the right people to do the job that's required of then.

[bisme37]

If we step back for a minute... was anyone who wanted to watch and enjoy these games not able to watch and enjoy them?

They were hyped a ton on NBA twitter and NBA.com and available to watch all over the world. I wouldn't expect the NBA to go around erecting billboards for a regular season game.

[BigGargamel]

If we step back for a minute... was anyone who wanted to watch and enjoy these games not able to watch and enjoy them?

They were hyped a ton on NBA twitter and NBA.com and available to watch all over the world. I wouldn't except the NBA to go around erecting billboards for a regular season game.

No one looks at billboards anymore. They should have broadcast these games directly into our brains. Missed opportunity, really.

[Bobbymcgee]

That's why I miss the old NBA on NBC. The opening intro by Bob Costas hyped up the game and made you feel like you were about to watch a battle of the titans. It got you excited for the game.

Now, it's like even the NBA doesn't care and is bored with itself. They would rather have people making fun of them on cable television than hyping them up on network television.

[reddyplayerone]

If we step back for a minute... was anyone who wanted to watch and enjoy these games not able to watch and enjoy them?

They were hyped a ton on NBA twitter and NBA.com and available to watch all over the world. I wouldn't expect the NBA to go around erecting billboards for a regular season game.

Clearly the NBA needed to plaster billboards for this very important monumental game in early January between a team 5 games and 1 game above .500

And it's not good enough that the game was simply available to watch for anyone who wanted, the NBA should have forced Serbia into martial law to enforce everyone stay inside and watch Joker's brilliance

France should have declared it Wembenyama day and made it a federal holiday

Frankly anyone who didn't watch should just be shot into the sun tbh

[NotaHypeJob]

Nobody cares about Jokic except hardcore fans and you guys are still struggling to accept it like 3 years later. You don't invite your girl or the boys over to watch Jokic, you put him in the background while you do your laundry for the week.

[ItsDanger]

They're all making too much money, there is no incentive to try to be innovative. They'd rather just recycle previous formula.

[eric365]

The spurs won only 22 games last season and they were expected to be a 30 or 35 win teams this year. And they were already with plenty of national tv game for this kind of record

The problem is the national tv schedule planned before the season with little adjustment after.

[jokeboy86]

None of this should surprise anyone in the same way it shouldn’t surprise anyone concerning soccer and boxing and even MMA to a certain extent. The main TV networks and mainstream sports media think(and probably have the numbers to back it up) that casual American sports fan have xenophobic viewing habits. If the top athletes are not American or at minimum come from a country where the first language is English they simply won’t watch.

In the case of the NBA it’s even worst because not only are the best players foreign but they are also big men as well(aside from Luka). The league built their entire popularity off marketable American guards/wings and now they don’t know what to do when they’re not the clear best players in the league. That’s what all this ratings talk is really about. The league and its TV partners don’t know how to pivot from what worked for them since Magic/Bird/Jordan

[cgf]

If we step back for a minute... was anyone who wanted to watch and enjoy these games not able to watch and enjoy them?

They were hyped a ton on NBA twitter and NBA.com and available to watch all over the world. I wouldn't expect the NBA to go around erecting billboards for a regular season game.

Yeah. Unless the NBA wants to cut the regular season down to a reasonable length to make every game into an event, there's only so much they can do to hype a non-holiday regular season match-up...and these games got that.