What happened?
In the wake of Game 1 of the NBA Finals drawing a record-low overnight rating, the question becomes -- what happened?
The hype prior to the game was at a level the NBA Finals have not seen since the Lakers were involved. LeBron James was being talked about as if he were the new Michael Jordan. And while the Cavaliers got blown out, the last outcome anyone expected was that people would not even tune in to watch him try to overcome the three-time champion Spurs. A terrible rating makes sense for Game 2, or Games 3 and 4. But for Game 1? When the series is tied at 0 and has not even started yet?
What accounts for the terrible number?
Are the San Antonio Spurs so much of a bore to watch that the casual fan will not bother even watching LeBron play against them? That is a possibility; the Spurs have played ugly basketball in three NBA Finals in the past decade -- maybe casual fans are simply tired of 80-70 final scores and players who have about as much charisma as Joe Lieberman.
But the opponent of the Spurs is a team that one would imagine would attract a large audience. Despite being arguably the most feeble team in the history of the NBA to make the Finals, and despite their play last night -- that undoubtedly made most NBA fans wonder exactly what was wrong with the Detroit Pistons -- the Cleveland Cavaliers feature LeBron James, a heavily packaged, mainstream superstar who has, on occasion, lived up to the hype. At 22 years old, James is in more commercials than all of the Spurs combined and is coming off of a transcendent performance against the Pistons. Why are fans less interested in watching the Spurs take on the league's next superstar than they were watching the Spurs take on the Detroit Pistons?
Maybe its the NBA. After all, it is the league people love to hate for so many reasons; outside of the young, male 'urban' demographic, love of the NBA is usually regarded with a put-down joke or outright disdain. That being said, the people who hate the NBA certainly were not tuning in last season or the year before that, so the fact that they are not watching this year should not have any effect on the ratings.
Maybe NBA fans are simply sick and tired of the league. Many NBA fans dislike the San Antonio Spurs, partly due to tactics perceived as bush-league that helped them defeat the Phoenix Suns in the second round. But most NBA fans hated the Lakers in their heyday as well, and still tuned in to watch the Finals.
Or, maybe its the television networks. Several networks have been recording horrible numbers over the past several weeks; NBC set a prime-time record low when the net averaged 4.8 million viewers last week, and audiences (even for the juggernaut American Idol) are down across the board. But even with the small audiences, the NBA showed that it could draw big ratings as recently as Saturday night, when 7.4 million viewers watched the Cavaliers drop Detroit on TNT. The thought was that the big number for that game would carry into the Finals. It has not.
No matter what the reason, the NBA has suddenly been set back to the year 2003. The 2003 Finals, it was widely believed, would never be topped -- or bottomed, that is. That series averaged a 6.5 rating, and was known more for the terrible basketball than anything else. Even the 2005 Finals, which was good in the way that eating vegetables is good for a child, drew a higher rating -- and no game from that seven game series drew an overnight lower than 8.0. How could a series involving arguably the league's biggest star, coming off of his most memorable performance, suddenly be on par with the Spurs and the Nets? Playoff ratings were down, but for Game 1 to set a record low is simply unfathomable.
11 comments:
Maybe college freshmen are having their schedule crimped by their own finals? :D
As someone who is only a casual fan of all things not NFL, I'd have to say the NBA has become quite boring to watch in this decade. I grew up always watching the playoffs and finals because although the Bulls, Rockets, Sonic, Magic, and so on were not a rooting interest for me, they were fun to watch. I remember only being 11 and getting pissed off about OJ Simpson's highway escapade causing a nuisance to the broadcast of the Knicks vs. Rockets game. I use to visit the hall of fame all the time, once going specifically to see the hoop and key from Salt Lake City where Jordan took his last championship winning shot as a Chicago Bull.
Outside of some genuinely likable players like Lebron and Dwayne Wade, very few of today's players warrant much devotion or attention. Stern is an ass, the teams are garbage in too many markets surrounding the area where the sport was created, and the small market teams that are successful simply aren't that interesting.
There isn't a whole lot the NBA can do now other than take solace that the ratings are good in El Salvador or a bunch of other places that most people will likely never set foot in. The problems with the league start at the top and trickle all the way down.
2003, when the Nets threw on some throwback duds midway through the Finals, like it was a December game against the Warriors, and nobody seemed to care. Duncan almost had a quadruple-double in Game 5, and all anyone remembers is Mike Tirico wearing an Incredible Hulk toy on his hand.
A great lot of us just seem ready for this season to end and the league to make one last batch of changes to emerge from the post-Jordan haze, especially regarding block/charge calls and playoff seeding, and move on in 2007-08. The Cavs were probably the third-best team in their conference; and though the Spurs were the best in theirs, they never had to take on the two best teams in the West at full strength.
And, yeah, cobble together the myriad hypothetical matchups ESPN/ABC wants to put together before the season in August for their Friday night or Sunday afternoon games, and Spurs/Cavs is probably seventh or eighth on the list. And that's taking into account ESPN's unhealthy obsession with LeBron, who's team is far from an intriguing watch. I loved Knicks/Heat back in the day, love to wade through a 82-80 slop-fest ... but the Cavs have been horrible to watch for two years now. Watching two lottery teams go at it -- no exaggeration -- is MUCH preferable.
This hockey fan would like to give a big nelson muntz style "ha ha" to crappy NBA ratings.
How come the "ratings are down across the board" theory is okay for the NBA< but not for the Stanley Cup?
As an NBA fan, I would like to give a big haha to your hockey ratings, which are still 1/4 of the NBA ratings.
If the NHL got 1/4 of the coverage compared to the NBA, I'd be hunky dorey with everything.
When basketball gets shoved down our throats by the Four Letter and hockey gets ignored or ridiculed, you'd think they would beat them by a much larger margin.
Ratings are down across the board, but the NHL can't afford even a lowering tide.
Here's another thought few people are considering:
The Finals schedule.
The Spurs dispatched the Jazz, back on May 30th. The Cavs took care of Detroit, on June 2nd. Then, viewers had to wait an additional five days for the championship round to begin; the Spurs themselves had to wait NINE days.
The NBA and Disney should have had this series up and going, no later than June 5th. Game 2 should follow TWO days later, NOT THREE.
Sure. One or two less days wouldn't have equaled two or three additional ratings points. But BSPN had gone out of its way to pimp 'Lebron Almighty' in the Finals. The way the league is floundering now, there's no way that hype would've been sustained for that amount of time.
That, and I honestly believe many viewers loathe ABC/BSPN's handling of the NBA. It's unfortunate that Turner Sports doesn't have a over-air broadcast arm. I'd be interested to know how fans would respond to hearing Marv Albert, Doug Collins, Steve Kerr, EJ, Barkley and The Jet for their Finals coverage.
The other problem here is an air of predictability. I did not expect the Cavs to beat the Pistons before the series started, but I knew as soon as Stoudamire and Diaw were suspended that the Spurs would win that series and ultimately go on to get a fourth finals win since 1999.
Compare this to last year where Dwayne Wade single handedly made the finals worth watching. Game 1 was basically exactly what I expected from the finals for the past several weeks. Maybe game 2 will be better, but I'll be watching the Sopranos.
At least in the NFL when get what was supposed to be the dullest Superbowl ever (Panthers vs. Patriots... and it was brutal at first) it exploded into something insanely entertaining (wardrobe malfunction and all). The NBA seems to just deliver exactly what every is expecting... which wasn't much to begin wtih.
I think a big factor is that this is not a David vs. Goliath matchup. Nobody outside of Ohio can logically find a way for the Cavs to win. There are no strategies the Cavs can use to win. Outside of Lebron, the Spurs have every single advantage. So there isn't really a reason for people to want to watch it when they know the Spurs will win. If Lebron's team was better, and there was a reason to believe they could take 4 of 7 from the Spurs, then ratings would definitely improve.
Unless the favorite has massive star power (Lakers w/Shaq/Kobe), you need the combination of star power and competition.
Turner does technically have an over-the-air network in the CW, but I doubt they're going to try and put sports on it, plus it's co-owned by CBS.
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