2022 NBA Finals on ABC is 5th least-watched series since 1988

[Lakerman0834]

Eastern Standard Time is the WOAT timezone for being a sports fan, you can't convince me otherwise. I was on EST in college and a west coast national TV game would be coming on at 9:30p on a weekday. I'd be falling asleep before half time. PAC-12 football games would kickoff at 10:30p.

In western timezones you can watch games and still have a little time to do something afterwards or just go to bed at a reasonable time.

EST Works well for EPL and La Liga games tho. But Sunday night football ending at 8pm PST is the goat

 

[MoneyTron]

The market was fukked the moment Balmer overpaid for the Clips and caused a trickle effect. No one’s purchasing a team with shytty attendance or a bad local deal unless they really want to get in the owners club. TV viewership drives TV deals but in this market, live sporting events are a premium so valuations are driven up. idk the fix but maybe go regional. No one cares about a Tues. nite game of Heat/Magic unless you’re from that locale and a die hard.

You didn’t address my point.

What is correlation between the overall health of the league right now and TV ratings?

What data supports this idea that TV ratings are everything to this sports league or any of them for that matter?

 

[SithLawd]

Put it back on NBC and bring back those bob costas pregame intros

Had u feeling like games were life or death

 

[Thavoiceofthevoiceless]

You didn’t address my point.

What is correlation between the overall health of the league right now and TV ratings?

What data supports this idea that TV ratings are everything to this sports league or any of them for that matter?

The question has already been answered in this thread and it involves negotiating and leverage. The better the ratings are for the league, the more money they can ask for in the next round of negotiations. Don't think for a second that ratings won't come up in the discussion when it comes time to negotiate. Yes, the league is financially in a good spot, but their ratings are decreasing and the only reason they are still and will get major dollars is because sports are a premium as they are supposed to be immune from cord cutting.

Don't be one of those people point to money and dollar signs as if all is well as it's certainly not the case. It just helps mask the problem overall.

 

[Lucky_Lefty]

You didn’t address my point.

What is correlation between the overall health of the league right now and TV ratings?

It's not possible to completely answer since you asked "Do you have numbers of all viewers regardless of media source?" which is impossible to gauge since no one is tracking illegal streaming which is the reason a lot of y'all are using to justify the ratings going down. You're basing the leagues viability and popularity to ad dollars, when every live sporting event is raking in record $$. It's a myriad of metrics to use to base a sports popularity. Using one is stupid. NBA Viewership is down. NBA attendance is down. 20 of the 30 teams saw a decline in paid attendance in comparison with the last season with no COVID restrictions. Let me guess? Streaming and home experience is better? If that was the case then the viewership #'s would reflect that.

 

[tremonthustler1]

Put it back on NBC and bring back those bob costas pregame intros

Had u feeling like games were life or death

What you want is to turn back the hands of time.

Gotta forge ahead.

They need to put it on different channels. Might be the reason why, plus way too late to watch them with people being busy all the time.

It's less that people are busy, they're just too busy to watch these games. Those fans got older and made a choice while the younger fans who would have otherwise taken their place would rather do something else.

 

[BK The Great]

What you want is to turn back the hands of time.

Gotta forge ahead.

It's less that people are busy, they're just too busy to watch these games. Those fans got older and made a choice while the younger fans who would have otherwise taken their place would rather do something else.

I’m also guessing a lot of Warriors fans who grew up watching Curry might’ve moved on. But people are way too busy nowadays to sit thru a 3 hour game. I can’t watch them, I have to go on YouTube to watch highlights from Ballislife or some other channel.

 

[MoneyTron]

The question has already been answered in this thread and it involves negotiating and leverage. The better the ratings are for the league, the more money they can ask for in the next round of negotiations. Don't think for a second that ratings won't come up in the discussion when it comes time to negotiate. Yes, the league is financially in a good spot, but their ratings are decreasing and the only reason they are still and will get major dollars is because sports are a premium as they are supposed to be immune from cord cutting.

Don't be one of those people point to money and dollar signs as if all is well as it's certainly not the case. It just helps mask the problem overall.

You aren't addressing my point either.

I never said ratings don't matter. I said I wanted data supporting a 1:1 connection between TV ratings and the overall heath and popularity of league.

 

[MoneyTron]

It's not possible to completely answer since you asked "Do you have numbers of all viewers regardless of media source?" which is impossible to gauge since no one is tracking illegal streaming which is the reason a lot of y'all are using to justify the ratings going down. You're basing the leagues viability and popularity to ad dollars, when every live sporting event is raking in record $$. It's a myriad of metrics to use to base a sports popularity. Using one is stupid. NBA Viewership is down. NBA attendance is down. 20 of the 30 teams saw a decline in paid attendance in comparison with the last season with no COVID restrictions. Let me guess? Streaming and home experience is better? If that was the case then the viewership #'s would reflect that.

I never used illegal streaming to justify anything. And I didn't exclusively base the league's popularity on ad dollars. I used it as an example of why TV ratings are flawed metric to measure the NBA's relative popularity and revenue generating capabilities.

There is no reason to increase advertising investment in a league that is losing popularity and viewers and yet...

 

[Glorious]

It just goes to show you off again that you nikkas don’t love the actual game, the sport of basketball. You nikkas love the WWE aspect of the league. The narratives, the storylines, the agendas. Y’all been lost enjoyment for this game but scared to admit it.

Championship series is about drawing the casusal or new fans. Your diehards been watching since opening night.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

The ratings thing is disingenuous if they’re comparing things to the 80’s. Times have changed. There wasn’t on demand tv back then. If you didn’t record it with your vcr you didn’t see it. That creates an urgency to watch.

Also, there also was a lack of media in general. The slate was clean at 9pm in 88. There was nothing else on at 9pm in 88. Hell most people didn’t have cable so there were only a handful of channels.

Can anyone answer this? Are the ratings US viewership only or are they talking worldwide?

yeah, you gotta compare it within its proper context of tv viewership in general. It doesn't make sense to compare NBA ratings to anything from the 80s/90s but it does make sense to compare to the modern era of NBA ratings which started with the Heatles era

 

[NYC Rebel]

Put it back on NBC and bring back those bob costas pregame intros

Had u feeling like games were life or death

That shyt aint matter when MU retired.

 

[Thavoiceofthevoiceless]

You aren't addressing my point either.

I never said ratings don't matter. I said I wanted data supporting a 1:1 connection between TV ratings and the overall heath and popularity of league.

I'll give you a perfect example of a connection. MLS had a ratings increase last year and was the most popular they had been in years, yet they were asking networks for $300 million a year to only end up getting $250 million which they had to get by going the streaming service route.

In the case of the NBA, it should be noted that ESPN/TNT overpaid for the televisions during the last deal when no one else even came close to that amount, so the NBA benefitted from that aspect.

Now turn around to the upcoming negotiations where they are coming off a decline in ratings from their finals and the regular season. Not to mention the fact that they have an issue of "rest management" that Silver is trying to solve by doing the midseason tournament. Rumors have it that they want $75 billion this go around up from the $24 billion over the previous deal. They'll get a major bump during the next deal, but you better believe that those networks are going to bring up the ratings into the discussion and what the league is going to do about the "rest management" issue as you would be hesitant to fork over billions of dollars to air games where star players aren't playing which leads to sagging ratings.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

I don’t have the data but common sense should tell you that social media activity should also translate into viewership of some sort. I’m also looking at the NFL who decided to not let their product be abused in highlight packages. We cant even upload NFL highlights in here. The NFL makes youtube take down many of the highlights made by fans. Its by design to keep fan interest into watching games. I felt it was genius and thought the NBA needed to go the same route.

Not really, you can look at music artists who have way more social media buzz than actual listeners. We in a new era where your celebrity and fame don’t necessarily have to coincide with hard numbers in your day job. If the NBA is influencing purchases and brand recognition for their sponsors, that’s all that matters, means these tv stations will keep paying because advertisers want to buy the spots. Until we see reports of the cost of ads and sponsorship going down for NBA games, their viewership is fine relative to what tv viewership is now

 

[Born2BKing]

There’s levels to it , shouts to the goat

Hardly noone even had internet during Jordans last finals. So yeah, context matters.