Game 1 of the Finals posts horrific TV ratings

[Mirotic12]

I'm at that stage where I wish basketball had less fans and TV ratings, not more.
Trying to appeal to as many people as possible, after a certain point, has been pretty destructive in my opinion.
Just let basketball be, stop **** with it, changing rules and guidance to refs all the time because some fat **** farting in his couch decided to change channel to football or whatever.

Yep. That's the real problem the NBA has.

They've made the league so soft, so superstar calls driven, so no defense, so non physical, so predictable (it's just two teams jacking up barely contested, or not contested threes all game), and so long and drawn out, with all of the ridiculously long timeouts and commercials - that it's just basically become a very bland, boring, and overly long and commercialized bad product.

NCAA, FIBA, EuroLeague are all much better basketball products for the viewer's experience.

[Mirotic12]

Re IND-OKC, I don't mind.
As much as I'd love to see the excitement that a gigantic market like NY would create in the FInals, the fact that two tiny (by US standards) regional markets made the absolute biggest stage is a testament to the integrity of the game and the league should be proud of it.
It would never happen in Europe.

If we only count the modern era (1988 final four onwards), and exclude all of the finals from before that:

1993 Limoges versus Treviso

1999 Zalgiris Kaunas versus Virtus Bologna

2001 Virtus Bologna versus Saski Baskonia

So, it's obviously pretty unusual, but I wouldn't say it would never happen.

[xdrta+]

They've made the league so soft, so superstar calls driven, so no defense, so non physical, so predictable (it's just two teams jacking up barely contested, or not contested threes all game)....

Is that what these playoffs have looked like to you?

[yosemiteben]

They know all the big names no matter who they play for.

Well if the threshold of commentator knowledge you're willing to accept is "they know the big names," you should be pretty happy with the current state of NBA media coverage.

[Da Doctor]

Who cares? Is the product good?

[Mamba81p]

The people watching illegal streams are still seeing commercials and products that they may search for later on, it doesn't matter how the exposure to a brand comes, as long as enough eyes see it. Ideally they want both, your subscription fee AND your eyes on the commercials, but they'll take one from people who use illegal streams, which is partly why they still exist because they're still getting eyes on ads in a lot of cases.

That second part is not entirely true, the NBA makes it's money from selling media rights, how the companies make their money after that is a combo of commercials and subs. You can watch the finals with an antenna, so the ads are obviously the dominant thing for making revenue, which is why the ratings talk is always so loud. But, we know there's a lot of people watching around the world that aren't being accounted for in the ratings, you see it in the NBA's online presence, their social media accounts are incredibly popular.

It matters where it comes from. As I said previously targeted commercials are more expensive than regular ones, and you can't target illegal streams. I've seen quotes 2-3x bigger for targeted ads. They don't really measure it either, so ESPN/ABC don't get anything from it, and advertisers probably don't know what they are getting from them.

For the second part from Disney's earnings reports https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disney-reveals-espn-financials-for-the-first-time-205114956.html
about 11 billion comes from subscribers and 4.4 from ads, so ads is not the dominant factor in their revenue.

[Ugly0598]

Who cares? Is the product good?

Its OK. There's not very much defense.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

What was the actual ratings? Just telling me it was horrific doesn’t give me numbers.

[Lalouie]

Well I think all the follow-up ratings will be very important. Because that's the best way to track the popularity of the sport.

if all the succeeding ratings suck then you know that there's something intrinsically wrong with the game and that people don't care. THAT is a problem

if the ratings fluctuate from game to game then you could probably determine the nature of how people perceive the game and what works or not

[LeBronSpaghetti]

Well the mainstream nba media **** on small markets 24/7 so what exactly do you expect? SAS in particular has been openly anti small market for years. They’ve made their bed now they have to lie in it.

[Patches Perry]

We can attribute a lot of this to the effects of the last couple CBAs. It created parity in a way that makes ratings difficult to attain, because ratings are often built on familiarity. People tune in for the faces and teams they are familiar with.

In the past, the factors that drive ratings would be:
1. Household names (LeBron, Steph, etc)
2. Big city markets

The new CBAs (supermax in 2017 and 2nd apron in 2023) are counterintuitive to the current and prior approach for driving ratings. They flattened big market spending advantage with the 2nd apron, and supermax deals made it harder to build championship teams around larger than life household names because they eat up a larger percentage of the cap. Big city markets used to be able to get around the spending problem by just absorbing the tax penalties and spending ungodly amounts of money, but the penalties are so harsh and punitive now that even big markets will baulk with the 2nd apron. And for #1, by the time a player becomes a household name, they are certainly well into their supermax era, so you have to build their supporting cast from the 65% of remaining cap space. Naturally, the lower max caps and lax penalties for big markets overspending in the past led to more big markets and household names in the finals.

On top of that, depth and versatility are more important than ever. You can hardly even play offensive or defensive liabilities very many minutes without them being exposed quickly. Both OKC and Indiana have 10+ man rotations where every guy is offensively and defensively capable. Boston won last year with this model as well, and in the finals, you had even Luka being hunted. Last series, Brunson was being hunted. In the modern pace and space style, you have to have 5 two way competent basketball players on the court at all times, which means you probably need at least 8 total. Building a team with 8 competent players who can do that is tough if your top players are making 35% of the cap.

We've also talked about how the new CBA limits a team's window, which also works against ratings. Boston is a big market and by virtue of winning a title had become more household names. But the 2nd apron crunch has effectively closed their window. Same thing happened to Denver, which led to them losing KCP and Brown. Indiana seems poised to keep this team together a long while, but OKC is going to have the same crunch in a couple years.

[CS707]

I’m sure it’s been covered at some point in the last 12 pages but I’m starting to see more of social media engagement being tracked as a measure of sports league popularity. How that intersects with ratings, and more specifically, advertising dollars I’m not sure but they’re definitely shifting away from old school tools. I assume these multibillion dollar businesses know more about it than me.

[IG2]

Only 2 reasons for this:

1) NBA is a completely star driven league and there aren't any big names in this series. Great (SGA) to very good (Hali, J-Will, Siakam) players, yes, but none of 'em have the star power to get the casual viewer to tune in.

2) 2 small markets

[SkyHook]

I hope that NBC hires smart analysts and commentators who will enthusiastically promote the product rather than the fecalfest we've been subjected to for years from the talking heads at ESPN & TNT.

[jkvonny]

I hope that NBC hires smart analysts and commentators who will enthusiastically promote the product rather than the fecalfest we've been subjected to for years from the talking heads at ESPN & TNT.

NBC and CBS was very good at it back in the days.

Hell! NBC sure loved them some mid/small market type teams back in the days. Lol. Reggie/Smits Pacers, Robinson/Elliot Spurs, Bad Boy Pistons, Stockton/Malone Utah Jazz, Vlade/Webber Kings, Cylde/Stoudamire Portland Trailblazers, Penny/Shaq Orlando Magic, etc!
You will see the difference between them and ESPN/ABC once NBC starts airing games again!

[mj234eva]

I'm a little a bar restaurant (in the Midwest), at least 10 TVs...none tuned to the game. They even have it tuned to ESPN, which is showing skateboarding...

I had to ask them to turn to ABC.

[bledredwine]

lol everyone’s surprised and upset that people find the nba uninteresting

[ItsDanger]

Some valid points raised here. I'd add that many of these players are kind of boring, lack personality.

[sp6r=underrated]

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.

Yup. And the NFL has no issues keeping young people’s attention as well, and not just for 2.5-3 hours. It’s 7 hours every Sunday. And this is where the NFL is consumed very differently than the NBA. NFL fans watch NFl games. Your team has a bye week or playing at a different time? NFL fans are still plopping down to watch some games.

While the NBA, most fans just watch their team or favorite player play.

This is true and it is a product of football being way more popular than basketball. If the NBA went to a once or twice a week schedule, revenue would be more likely to collapse than popularity surging. I just don't think basketball fans would adopt the attitude they should start watching clubs like this year's Houston Rockets (good team that can't win title).

I just think the non-football sports in America need to accept they're all niche entertainments that depend on a breakout star or the rare team with a national following.

[thelead]

why should fans care? The whole 'if ads don't cover the bills they'll charge us more' bit isn't really how business works. The consumer pockets aren't infinite and there are other options for entertainment... more like 'if ads don't cover the bills team owners and players will make less'... and again, why should fans care???