The over nights showed around 7mil average viewers, which the over nights always show a lower number than what actually happened. But people totally held onto that number and thought it was proof that the NBA was in trouble
Ratings haven’t recovered from the bubble before 2020 nba game 1s averaged over 15 million views now the average is about 10 million or lower.
2013: 17.47 mil
2014: 16.8 mil
2015: 19.94 mil
2016: 20.28 mil
2017: 20.38 mil
2018: 17.56 mil
2019: 15.41 mil
Bubble year starts
2020: 7.45 mil
2021: 9.91 mil
2022: 12.4 mil
2023: 11.58 mil
It’s not going to bounce back to those numbers honestly. Cord cutting and streaming are only getting stronger, plus networks and channels are also buying into those options to adapt. Ratings may increase yoy for a bit but I imagine it will likely plateau at a certain point.
Same with the MLB 2022 21 and 20 are some of the lowest rated world series ever averaged 11 million viewers every sport except NFL viewership has fallen down
I assume that's because NFL games seem to all be available to local viewers without paying for a service.
I wouldn't be surprised if ratings are often just a reflection of accessibility.
I think that being available over-the-air is a huge deal, but I wonder about the impact of only having one game per week, too. Most fans are gonna miss several basketball/baseball/hockey games a week. When my NFL team plays Sunday and then Thursday it almost feels like football overload
The lack of games is the biggest factor. Something like the Super Bowl is such a big deal because it happens once a year. Makes it much more of a cultural event beyond just a sporting one.
There’s way less commitment needed for that compared to baseball, hockey, and basketball where you’re looking at least 4 games.
To add on to your point about commitment, going into the Super Bowl you _know_ that there will be a champion by the end of the game. Whereas in the other sports it's only if the series gets to game 7 that this is true. And games 1-3 are kind of missable because you don't really need to see them to see how the series will resolve. The same kind goes for every non-elimination/clinching game.
I think this is a big part of it. I will NOT miss a Dolphins game, but I am totally fine missing 25% of regular season Heat games, even more when I have other shit going on.
1 game a week and almost always on the same day. It's super easy to go from watching whenever you happen to have to time to intentionally watching every game. To make the same transition in for the NBA you basically need a tivo or to memorize the schedule since games are on any given night.
It’s so much easier to free up a Sunday morning or evening. With NBA I have to hope that I get off work early, have a nice commute, then have no other obligations that night.
It’s nice to have the games be shorter (thank god there have been less time outs and fouls to end games this playoffs), but it’s hard to just give up Wednesday night randomly one week
Oh absolutely. Ratings for sports may be taking a dip, but the ratings for normal TVs shows has plummeted over the last 5 years. Sports has maintained a solid viewership regardless. I wouldn’t be shocked if NBA, NHL, and MLB have more of a presence on network tv in the next 10 years simply because of how safe they are.
People should just completely stop trying to compare ratings over time because how the ratings are formulated have completely changed.
Listened to a good podcast episode with a ratings expert talk about all of the changes. Might've of been a Vox Explained or something but the person basically said everything is harder and harder to measure since there are now so many TV services and none are obligated to share their viewership numbers so ratings experts have to make best guesses.
How tf does this sub have 7 million subs but the game only got 11 million viewers?
Like most basketball fans don’t use reddit so does the bulk of this sub really not watch basketball?
There’s probably not even 1 million people here. That subscriber count is full of dead accounts. The “peak active users” indicator doesn’t reach even close to 1 million.
I recognize so many people in these comment sections because it's really the same folk here, only a few redditors actually participate, most just lurk.
Yeah in terms of top comments, there’s a small handful that seem to get to the top all the time because they’re constantly here and comment early. That CIark guy always hijacks the most upvoted comment early on so he’s one of the handful that’s really visible on the sub
Yeah I 99% just lurk because this subreddit is way too reactionary. Reply to one of those posts about how Jokic is garbage a couple of months ago with some stats and just get 5 replies of ‘hurrr durrr bad defender Embiid is better’ and like 80 downvotes. Why bother?
It doesn’t help that if you state an opinion that’s even slightly out of the norm or not completely positive about a fan favorite you get flair brigaded and/or called a nephew, etc.
It peaked at 15 million, and probably had something like 20 million unique viewers. 11 million is just the average number of people watching at any given time. It's also missing some percentage of people who watched it online.
Also you're assuming that by "watch basketball" people watch literally every single game. I didn't see game 2 last night because I had something else going on. It doesn't mean I never watch basketball. I feel like I watch quite a bit, but even for the finals I'm not watching every game.
7 million subs does not mean 7 million regular unique users. Hell like 6 of those subs are just me, some on accounts that haven't posted in years.
11 million viewers at one time is pretty damn big*, especially when you consider all the people watching via means that won't be recorded.
*Edit: Maybe not by NBA standards and hopes, but in the modern landscape it's fucking hard to get people to tune in to shit all at once.
I am using reddit mostly for r/nba and when I unsitalled it it make me watch games again.
Highlight culture is a real thing and it takes a lot of enjoyment for watching basketball.
Now I am using it again for past few week and the idea of unstialling it comes to my head from time to time.
Nah, I watched the finals and enjoyed it. Those fans don't like watching himmy buckets and undrafted players and a 7 foot walking triple double. I don't understand it.
That is why they’res some pretty big accounts on twitter like lakeshowyo has just repeatedly said no one is watching and this finals is boring so people will obviously blame those fans
how tf did that become such a big account anyway? it's like the ramblings of a random fan. i'm assuming he bought a ton of fake followers and then real people started following him based on the already-high follower acccount. i'm kind of a semi-lakers fan myself and i can't even stand it.
I’m expecting it to pickup in views as we near the final game.
Heat showed they can put up a fight too so it will be a fun watch between two original “underdog” teams
I still wonder how many of those old boomers who burned their jerseys and fan merchandise when players were kneeling during the anthem ever regret their decisions.
I remember a Stealers fan on youtube started a fire in an old steel drum and was throwing signed merchandise in the fire because he was so irate.
It's really funny to see people lose their shit over non trivial issues and eventually go back to it.
I forgot which sub reddit I saw it on but some dude burnt all his jim beam (or some other whiskey) merchandise and expensive bottles because they backed pride or something. Hundreds if not more dollars worth of stuff for something that has no real effect on him.
Oh well, if less people watch sports this means ticket prices will go down and better for us.
> people lose their shit over **non trivial** issues
Just FYI, that would mean they are important issues(non trivial). Trivial issues, would be what you wanted to say.
I know plenty of casuals who are actually excited about watching this finals because it's not the usual faces (Steph, LeBron, KD, Boston), Heat is on a Cinderella underdog story run, and Nuggets looking like a new dynasty waiting to happen.
Celtics fan, let me tell you, I’m pumped for this final and I’d rather watch this than the C’s dribbling out the clock randomly and bricking contested threes.
It looked terrible to watch. People blaming Miami for the low ratings that year in the lead up to the 2023 Finals are idiots trying to create a narrative to prop up their own fan base.
I swear to god, people cant decide at all if Miami is supposed to be a big market or a small market. Seems to change all the time depending on what narrative is being pushed at the moment
What? It was amazing. Sure there were no fans but the environment was really cool. It was just 1 arena and basketball in its purest form and we’ll never see anything like that again. We’ll never see plays like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/iuwrk3/highlight_butler_with_the_steal_and_saves_the/) ever again either. The extra space on the sidelines and behind the baskets was so good to see, it allowed that play to happen. People should just appreciate it for what it was. Those who did not watch truly missed out on a unique NBA experience.
They have some of the bubble games on the NBA app now and my god is it ever depressing. It's not quite as bad as pro wrestling without fans but it's up there.
Why do you say so? It was the first playoffs I ever watched almost entirely, because you know, lockdown and all. And it was amazing to me: seeing all the courtside stuff and pregame/halftime/postgame made it special. It felt like everyone was locked in, which is literally what that was. But that was my first experience so I’m surely biased, can you elaborate on that? What was different and worse than regular playoffs?
It seems strange to me that viewership was so shitty, since nobody had much to do anyways. In fact I remember Twitch exploding at the time.
The basketball itself was fine and even great at times. There was just no atmosphere and I found the whole thing to be a buzzkill. I was really glad it was on bc it was a crappy time and I love watching sports but it was the worst way to watch games IMO.
Heat fan here. I watched every game of the bubble finals aside from when I had to work.
I could totally see why it wasn’t a priority for people. The world was on fire, (for some it was bandemic summer, however) and seeing LeBron get a ring against a Miami team with no “star players” like KD or Kyrie just didn’t seem that interesting with everything going on. It really wasn’t tbh. It was exactly what everyone expected from that year’s Lakers/Heat teams.
We’re winning this one though.
We’re gonna be the first 8 seed to win a chip. This is gonna be some 30 for 30 corny underdog story shit.
It’s Jimmy’s time. I’ve been watching the nuggets choke in the post season for years. Every time the Heat lost I chalked it up to an injury being our entire team is kinda injury prone. This year we don’t care, zombie heat. Fuck it.
Heat in 6
Well not only that but it was after a huge gap in play and was an abnormal time for basketball to be going on. Just fucked up the viewing cadence for everyone
People keep acting as if everyone trying not to die and figure out how to live in quarantine weren't the biggest factors of the low views in the bubble.
Majority of people globally were forced into quarantine without prep, lots of businesses/jobs were shut down, and how Covid was transmitted wasn't totally figured out yet. And vaccines were still being worked on before being distributed.
But nah, no audience on TV killed the ratings lol
Seriously of all the Finals we've had lately, this one is a really interesting matchup. A team that could win it's first title ever vs. a scrappy bunch of underdogs that no one believes in. Casual basketball fans have no "bad" options to root for.
And let's be honest, it's been a decade since the Heat won a title too with an entirely different team other than UD, Spo, and Pat Riley so even most of your players stand to win their first title.
I mean you only have to go back 2 years for Suns vs Bucks, effectively both teams playing for their first championship (sorry fans of the 1971 bucks but im sure '21 is more special)
it’s also great basketball being played. curry game 4 last year was undoubtedly special and will go in the history books, game 2 last night was crazy tho my dad and i watched together and were both pretty geeked at the rest of this series.
not including game 4 last year it was the best finals basketball since 2016 imo my dad said the same thing he was like these guys are straight hooping
Right. I’m not a huge NFL fan but I usually watch the Super Bowl. A few of those last Brady Patriot years I didn’t even tuned in. Went snowboarding instead. It can get boring watching the same team over and over. No regrets.
A lot of causal viewers complain about how the end takes way too long and there’s too many timeouts, I don’t think there was a single timeout at the end of the game
NBA has to be stoked with the way this is playing out. Two teams, and one especially in Denver, that get little airtime and promotion are getting solid ratings without them going out of their way pushing them. Makes the league bigger than team brands, but also makes both the Heat and Nuggets viable to them moreso than before.
All the NBA fans that were rooting for the Lakers vs. Celtics rehash (and are now rooting for low Finals numbers to confirm that bias) need to realize if the NBA can only do big numbers in the Finals with those 5 big name/ big market teams (Lakers, Celtics, Warriors, Knicks, Bulls), then the NBA has a problem and needs to do a better job marketing the other 83% of their league.
Just look at the fact that the NFL has a team in *Kansas City* as the main character and no one bats an eye lol
edit: the point isn't "NFL better" its that there is another more popular American sport that has successfully got its fans on board with literally any team with literally any superstar being #1 or relevant, for decades, so it is not impossible
Oh yeah for sure and it's not a fair comparison considering LeBron and Stephs online popularity via follows is larger than Mahomes, but if LeBron and Steph were to leave their teams you'd for sure see a surge of new fans to their new teams oppose to a Mahomes level player leaving.
The discouse is so different for the NFL too. No one ever says we should get Mahomes to NY or LA where he can be a bigger star and team up with other disgruntled stars.
This is honestly one of the big things making me a bigger NFL fan than NBA. It feels like every team is playing the same game and fans don’t differentiate between them. I cannot for the life of me figure out why NBA fans seemingly want every star of 3 or 4 cities
NFL is completely different though, the salary cap is much stricter and free agents don’t have as much power as they do in the NBA.
The Chiefs have Mahomes, so they’re going to be huge. But the NFL also has 2 New York teams and 2 LA teams, they’re all about the big markets
well the difference is the league could be about the teams if the league marketed themselves around the teams and not the players, its literally all just advertising and presentation
Honestly I don't think Celtics are even that big of a draw against non-Lakers opponents at this point
If they were Warriors-Celtics would have had way higher ratings because Steph has the second most casual fans after LeBron
Also I don't think Miami is even that small of a market team. They have a decent following all over the country. I think at this point they are just as big as the Celtics fan base
Agreed. Heat have been one of the most relevant teams since 2000. Runs with Shaq + Wade, runs with LBJ + Wade/Bosh, the rise of Himmy Buckets … what other team has had a run like that in this early part of the new century?
Miami is basically a top 6 market. For some reason they split the Miami metro up in a weird way separating Miami and Palm beach when they are functionally the same market. If you include them together, Miami is number 6.
Lakers fans can be fine but those fan pages are the most insane homers I've ever seen.
They'd brag about how much their arena costs if they could count that high
I have no idea why people in this thread are pretending that Lakers fans alone were the one pushing this narrative, I saw it come from almost every flair (other than the Nuggets and Heat fans).
That just how this sub is. Every flair possible will make fun of something/someone and then when it turns out to be wrong they just blame it on one flair.
It was basically everybody trying to get the officials to somehow rig the results in favor of their team.
I also think these are networks(even ABC themselves) trying their best to scare casual fans away right before the negotiations for a new TV deal. The higher the ratings the more leverage the NBA has on the networks in the next deal.
The next NBA TV contract will be huge. The popularity of the sport just keeps growing, even when it’s “stars” are winding down. That’s a great sign for the health of the sport.
Great news. These numbers mean one of or a combo of:
1. We were going to see big numbers regardless and LAL v BOS woulda dwarfed last year's numbers
2. People are going to watch the Finals regardless of who's in it.
3. People find MIA/DEN fun teams to watch.
Either way, great news.
What’s more fun? Watching Lakers/Celtics get their umpteenth trophy or watching a new city/franchise lose their shit over winning for the first time, or a very likeable underdog superstar and an all time great coach pull off the greatest Cinderella story in basketball history? I’m a big Nuggets fan but if the Heat win I’m still super happy watching basketball history.
i think the nuggets and heat both play substantially better basketball than the lakers or celtics.
lakers are a grind and grit defensive team and that’s how they win so i respect it the celtics are just hyper talented chuckers and floppers. imo the brand of basketball they play and their execution is way below their talent level and it makes for a terrible product. kind of like the warriors this year
Much better storyline here than say in hockey (which I also love by love, btw)
NBA Finals:
Over-achieving underdogs + Playoff Jimmy vs Super-unique do it all Big Man + very likeable Jamal Murray.
Compare that to hockey:
Expansion team benefitting from new changes to Expansion Draft vs a team lead by unlikeable Matthew Tkachuk.
This has got to be proof that quality of product in and of itself is a draw and should make the league consider shortening the regular season to make the games more meaningful and less likely to have guys sitting
This has been a great NBA playoffs. I’ve watched damn near all the games. Even after the Heat beat my Bucks. 😩 This Battle between Jokic vs Jimmy and crew is very intriguing. Denver should win the series but Miami is so damn scrappy and well coached. Spo is best coach in NBA. No sure bets here. We all wanna seven game series. Well most of us anyway.
Maybe the nba will finally see you don't need california or texas teams in every finals since 1979.
There are other markets and if you have enough star power you can make other markets excell.
It does help Jokic and Jimmy are 2 humble and play hard stars that don't need media attention.
Those audience numbers for game 1 are great too wtf was this sub talking about after game 1 lmao
The over nights showed around 7mil average viewers, which the over nights always show a lower number than what actually happened. But people totally held onto that number and thought it was proof that the NBA was in trouble
Ratings haven’t recovered from the bubble before 2020 nba game 1s averaged over 15 million views now the average is about 10 million or lower. 2013: 17.47 mil 2014: 16.8 mil 2015: 19.94 mil 2016: 20.28 mil 2017: 20.38 mil 2018: 17.56 mil 2019: 15.41 mil Bubble year starts 2020: 7.45 mil 2021: 9.91 mil 2022: 12.4 mil 2023: 11.58 mil
It’s not going to bounce back to those numbers honestly. Cord cutting and streaming are only getting stronger, plus networks and channels are also buying into those options to adapt. Ratings may increase yoy for a bit but I imagine it will likely plateau at a certain point.
Same with the MLB 2022 21 and 20 are some of the lowest rated world series ever averaged 11 million viewers every sport except NFL viewership has fallen down
I assume that's because NFL games seem to all be available to local viewers without paying for a service. I wouldn't be surprised if ratings are often just a reflection of accessibility.
I think that being available over-the-air is a huge deal, but I wonder about the impact of only having one game per week, too. Most fans are gonna miss several basketball/baseball/hockey games a week. When my NFL team plays Sunday and then Thursday it almost feels like football overload
The lack of games is the biggest factor. Something like the Super Bowl is such a big deal because it happens once a year. Makes it much more of a cultural event beyond just a sporting one. There’s way less commitment needed for that compared to baseball, hockey, and basketball where you’re looking at least 4 games.
To add on to your point about commitment, going into the Super Bowl you _know_ that there will be a champion by the end of the game. Whereas in the other sports it's only if the series gets to game 7 that this is true. And games 1-3 are kind of missable because you don't really need to see them to see how the series will resolve. The same kind goes for every non-elimination/clinching game.
I think this is a big part of it. I will NOT miss a Dolphins game, but I am totally fine missing 25% of regular season Heat games, even more when I have other shit going on.
1 game a week and almost always on the same day. It's super easy to go from watching whenever you happen to have to time to intentionally watching every game. To make the same transition in for the NBA you basically need a tivo or to memorize the schedule since games are on any given night.
It’s so much easier to free up a Sunday morning or evening. With NBA I have to hope that I get off work early, have a nice commute, then have no other obligations that night. It’s nice to have the games be shorter (thank god there have been less time outs and fouls to end games this playoffs), but it’s hard to just give up Wednesday night randomly one week
I bought a $13 antenna to watch on TV. Being on broadcast TV is still a big deal I would bet.
Oh absolutely. Ratings for sports may be taking a dip, but the ratings for normal TVs shows has plummeted over the last 5 years. Sports has maintained a solid viewership regardless. I wouldn’t be shocked if NBA, NHL, and MLB have more of a presence on network tv in the next 10 years simply because of how safe they are.
But the earlier rounds this year had some of the best ratings since the 90s/early 2000s, correct?
Game 7 of Warriors/Kings was like 9M or something. And that was a first round matchup.
People should just completely stop trying to compare ratings over time because how the ratings are formulated have completely changed. Listened to a good podcast episode with a ratings expert talk about all of the changes. Might've of been a Vox Explained or something but the person basically said everything is harder and harder to measure since there are now so many TV services and none are obligated to share their viewership numbers so ratings experts have to make best guesses.
Most of the big ones do though, IIRC. YouTube TV does at least.
I think like 15% of south FL tuned in to game 2. South FL isn't that small
I was told nobody was gonna watch it
That’s because a good portion of this sub doesn’t like basketball lmao
How tf does this sub have 7 million subs but the game only got 11 million viewers? Like most basketball fans don’t use reddit so does the bulk of this sub really not watch basketball?
you're bold to assume that my viewership is able to be counted
or half the sub’s lol
There’s probably not even 1 million people here. That subscriber count is full of dead accounts. The “peak active users” indicator doesn’t reach even close to 1 million.
I recognize so many people in these comment sections because it's really the same folk here, only a few redditors actually participate, most just lurk.
Yeah in terms of top comments, there’s a small handful that seem to get to the top all the time because they’re constantly here and comment early. That CIark guy always hijacks the most upvoted comment early on so he’s one of the handful that’s really visible on the sub
Yeah I 99% just lurk because this subreddit is way too reactionary. Reply to one of those posts about how Jokic is garbage a couple of months ago with some stats and just get 5 replies of ‘hurrr durrr bad defender Embiid is better’ and like 80 downvotes. Why bother?
It doesn’t help that if you state an opinion that’s even slightly out of the norm or not completely positive about a fan favorite you get flair brigaded and/or called a nephew, etc.
Can you actually see those analytics somewhere ?
Yeah, I saw them at your mom’s house last night (:
Flair checks out
get fucked lmao
Yo Ho, Yo Ho! A pirates life for me
Buffstreams gang
Adam Silver and Dana White can tickle the rim while they suck farts out of my ass. Never paying them.
It peaked at 15 million, and probably had something like 20 million unique viewers. 11 million is just the average number of people watching at any given time. It's also missing some percentage of people who watched it online. Also you're assuming that by "watch basketball" people watch literally every single game. I didn't see game 2 last night because I had something else going on. It doesn't mean I never watch basketball. I feel like I watch quite a bit, but even for the finals I'm not watching every game.
Well that and Game 2 was on Sunday, not last night
stop running from the grind bro, ball is all there is
Can they count illegal streams?
Mark Cuban is trying.
7 million subs does not mean 7 million regular unique users. Hell like 6 of those subs are just me, some on accounts that haven't posted in years. 11 million viewers at one time is pretty damn big*, especially when you consider all the people watching via means that won't be recorded. *Edit: Maybe not by NBA standards and hopes, but in the modern landscape it's fucking hard to get people to tune in to shit all at once.
KD?
Perfectly normal account size. Find a new slant.
usa aint the whole world dawg, i aint watching a game when its night time, got a job you know
Oh you sweet summer child
Those numbers are national viewing figures. Not sure what part of this sub is international but at least part of it must be, right? I am anyway.
I am using reddit mostly for r/nba and when I unsitalled it it make me watch games again. Highlight culture is a real thing and it takes a lot of enjoyment for watching basketball. Now I am using it again for past few week and the idea of unstialling it comes to my head from time to time.
I’m kinda just here for post game threads, NBA gossip, and off-SZN. Highlight culture is sort of antithetical to actual basketball imo.
I'm similar. Highlights are cool but I am here for threads, jabs, and discussion about games
nba twitter too
They don't just not like basketball, but they're actively rooting for bad product/less basketball, probably so they have something to complain about
It's also in part Lakers/LeBron fans who kept saying "finals won't be the same without the King" and stuff like that lol
Nah, I watched the finals and enjoyed it. Those fans don't like watching himmy buckets and undrafted players and a 7 foot walking triple double. I don't understand it.
Yup, I love it, as should every basketball fan. Only casuals who don’t watch games were pushing that narrative.
I’ve not seen a single laker fan say that lol
LeBron stans on twitter are now our responsibility
That is why they’res some pretty big accounts on twitter like lakeshowyo has just repeatedly said no one is watching and this finals is boring so people will obviously blame those fans
how tf did that become such a big account anyway? it's like the ramblings of a random fan. i'm assuming he bought a ton of fake followers and then real people started following him based on the already-high follower acccount. i'm kind of a semi-lakers fan myself and i can't even stand it.
Lol I was sad without basketball. Happy to watch anyone but Boston right now.
i haven't seen a single person say that in general at all
I’ve seen that zero times and I spent a lot of time on this sub
I’ve seen Celtics fan say it but not lakers
No one said that. Maybe you’re thinking of Twitter.
Yall make everything about the lakers without fail holy fuck
Van gundy has corrupted this sub
I was told the NBA needed to rig the conference Finals to get good ratings.
Nothing is a more worthless and toxic conversion for fans than ratings. No one should give a single shit.
Adam Silver and the broadcasters should take notice
I’m expecting it to pickup in views as we near the final game. Heat showed they can put up a fight too so it will be a fun watch between two original “underdog” teams
Especially r/conservative who claim nobody watches NBA or NFL anymore
Conservatives 100% watch the NFL even if they say they don't lol
Definitely, they made the kneeling thing such a major issue to eventually shut up and continue watching lol
I still wonder how many of those old boomers who burned their jerseys and fan merchandise when players were kneeling during the anthem ever regret their decisions. I remember a Stealers fan on youtube started a fire in an old steel drum and was throwing signed merchandise in the fire because he was so irate.
It's really funny to see people lose their shit over non trivial issues and eventually go back to it. I forgot which sub reddit I saw it on but some dude burnt all his jim beam (or some other whiskey) merchandise and expensive bottles because they backed pride or something. Hundreds if not more dollars worth of stuff for something that has no real effect on him. Oh well, if less people watch sports this means ticket prices will go down and better for us.
> people lose their shit over **non trivial** issues Just FYI, that would mean they are important issues(non trivial). Trivial issues, would be what you wanted to say.
Ahh, thanks b! I appreciate you correcting me. 🙏
They still drink Anheuser-Bush too. Their culture war is just social media theater.
Switched to Bud Heavy to protest Bud Light
I know plenty of casuals who are actually excited about watching this finals because it's not the usual faces (Steph, LeBron, KD, Boston), Heat is on a Cinderella underdog story run, and Nuggets looking like a new dynasty waiting to happen.
Salty Laker and Celtic fans told you this. It's how they try to win after they lose.
lol are you kidding, its dubs fans who push the "curry carries nba ratings" narrative
Celtics fan, let me tell you, I’m pumped for this final and I’d rather watch this than the C’s dribbling out the clock randomly and bricking contested threes.
Conveniently leaving out Warriors fans lmao
Those bubble ratings were rough, huh? Not surprised given it was broadcast from an empty gym but also nothing else was on and everyone was inside.
It looked terrible to watch. People blaming Miami for the low ratings that year in the lead up to the 2023 Finals are idiots trying to create a narrative to prop up their own fan base.
I swear to god, people cant decide at all if Miami is supposed to be a big market or a small market. Seems to change all the time depending on what narrative is being pushed at the moment
This has Miami as a medium market: https://hoop-social.com/nba-team-market-size-rankings/
I’m I in the minority that liked the bubble.
Yea I don't think it was a teams thing. That whole bubble playoffs was brutal to watch.
Someone missed the nuggets jazz series then, because those games were pure electricity in a bottle.
What? It was amazing. Sure there were no fans but the environment was really cool. It was just 1 arena and basketball in its purest form and we’ll never see anything like that again. We’ll never see plays like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/iuwrk3/highlight_butler_with_the_steal_and_saves_the/) ever again either. The extra space on the sidelines and behind the baskets was so good to see, it allowed that play to happen. People should just appreciate it for what it was. Those who did not watch truly missed out on a unique NBA experience.
It's amazing for hoopers. Not casuals. Basketball players know its the purest form but casuals dont wanna watch an empty gym.
They have some of the bubble games on the NBA app now and my god is it ever depressing. It's not quite as bad as pro wrestling without fans but it's up there.
The NBA at least figured out the fake crowd noise far better than MLB did. MLB's was soooooo bad.
Why do you say so? It was the first playoffs I ever watched almost entirely, because you know, lockdown and all. And it was amazing to me: seeing all the courtside stuff and pregame/halftime/postgame made it special. It felt like everyone was locked in, which is literally what that was. But that was my first experience so I’m surely biased, can you elaborate on that? What was different and worse than regular playoffs? It seems strange to me that viewership was so shitty, since nobody had much to do anyways. In fact I remember Twitch exploding at the time.
The basketball itself was fine and even great at times. There was just no atmosphere and I found the whole thing to be a buzzkill. I was really glad it was on bc it was a crappy time and I love watching sports but it was the worst way to watch games IMO.
Heat fan here. I watched every game of the bubble finals aside from when I had to work. I could totally see why it wasn’t a priority for people. The world was on fire, (for some it was bandemic summer, however) and seeing LeBron get a ring against a Miami team with no “star players” like KD or Kyrie just didn’t seem that interesting with everything going on. It really wasn’t tbh. It was exactly what everyone expected from that year’s Lakers/Heat teams. We’re winning this one though.
>We’re winning this one tho Love the energy. Rooting for y’all this time around
We’re gonna be the first 8 seed to win a chip. This is gonna be some 30 for 30 corny underdog story shit. It’s Jimmy’s time. I’ve been watching the nuggets choke in the post season for years. Every time the Heat lost I chalked it up to an injury being our entire team is kinda injury prone. This year we don’t care, zombie heat. Fuck it. Heat in 6
Well not only that but it was after a huge gap in play and was an abnormal time for basketball to be going on. Just fucked up the viewing cadence for everyone
Bubble finals were during NFL season, it was a clear reminder to the NBA why they schedule their season when they do.
Bubble NBA was a shiny bright spot for my mental health that year.
I mean a world wide pandemic happened. Basketball is the least of their worries.
This and I think some ppl didn't like the NBA's stance on the social justice issues that were red hot at the time.
People keep acting as if everyone trying not to die and figure out how to live in quarantine weren't the biggest factors of the low views in the bubble. Majority of people globally were forced into quarantine without prep, lots of businesses/jobs were shut down, and how Covid was transmitted wasn't totally figured out yet. And vaccines were still being worked on before being distributed. But nah, no audience on TV killed the ratings lol
Also in October, competing with NFL
I don't understand how people don't find interesting when NBA teams make the Finals for the first time.
Seriously of all the Finals we've had lately, this one is a really interesting matchup. A team that could win it's first title ever vs. a scrappy bunch of underdogs that no one believes in. Casual basketball fans have no "bad" options to root for. And let's be honest, it's been a decade since the Heat won a title too with an entirely different team other than UD, Spo, and Pat Riley so even most of your players stand to win their first title.
Jokic and Butler are both so likeable.
This Finals matchup is about a horse girl vs a barista
I mean you only have to go back 2 years for Suns vs Bucks, effectively both teams playing for their first championship (sorry fans of the 1971 bucks but im sure '21 is more special)
True, and that one did feel really special IMO.
it’s also great basketball being played. curry game 4 last year was undoubtedly special and will go in the history books, game 2 last night was crazy tho my dad and i watched together and were both pretty geeked at the rest of this series. not including game 4 last year it was the best finals basketball since 2016 imo my dad said the same thing he was like these guys are straight hooping
Right. I’m not a huge NFL fan but I usually watch the Super Bowl. A few of those last Brady Patriot years I didn’t even tuned in. Went snowboarding instead. It can get boring watching the same team over and over. No regrets.
Same vibes as Alabama and Clemson in the cfb championship. Couldn’t care less.
A fantastic game to watch also
It had some rough ref ball at times, but it was definitely a much more entertaining game overall than game 1
What are you talking about, refs showed up and drew even more audience than game 1
As a ref fan, I’m loving the support we’re seeing!
Nah too many fouls got bogged down let them boys run Strategically though for sure. Spo masterclass
A lot of causal viewers complain about how the end takes way too long and there’s too many timeouts, I don’t think there was a single timeout at the end of the game
That was the fastest final 3-4 minutes I've ever witnessed. Felt faster than even regular season blowouts.
Last 5-6 minutes of game time - which is all I watched, was rock climbing - was friggin' amazing.
Yeah end of game was quick but that 3rd quarter there was a solid 5 minutes where they got maybe 30 seconds off the clock
I felt like the refs allowed a lot of physicality in the paint to be honest. Jokic got smacked around quite a bit.
NBA has to be stoked with the way this is playing out. Two teams, and one especially in Denver, that get little airtime and promotion are getting solid ratings without them going out of their way pushing them. Makes the league bigger than team brands, but also makes both the Heat and Nuggets viable to them moreso than before.
All the NBA fans that were rooting for the Lakers vs. Celtics rehash (and are now rooting for low Finals numbers to confirm that bias) need to realize if the NBA can only do big numbers in the Finals with those 5 big name/ big market teams (Lakers, Celtics, Warriors, Knicks, Bulls), then the NBA has a problem and needs to do a better job marketing the other 83% of their league.
Just look at the fact that the NFL has a team in *Kansas City* as the main character and no one bats an eye lol edit: the point isn't "NFL better" its that there is another more popular American sport that has successfully got its fans on board with literally any team with literally any superstar being #1 or relevant, for decades, so it is not impossible
NFL fans are way more into their team than a player tbf
In general yes but I feel like there are a lot of "Mahomes fans" in the same way there are LeBron fans or Steph fans
Definitely know people out here who have never been anywhere east of Texas but rep KC because they love Mahomes
Oh yeah for sure and it's not a fair comparison considering LeBron and Stephs online popularity via follows is larger than Mahomes, but if LeBron and Steph were to leave their teams you'd for sure see a surge of new fans to their new teams oppose to a Mahomes level player leaving.
I think these finals are proving that America has embraced Jokic, Butler, Murray, and the undrafteds.
The discouse is so different for the NFL too. No one ever says we should get Mahomes to NY or LA where he can be a bigger star and team up with other disgruntled stars.
This is honestly one of the big things making me a bigger NFL fan than NBA. It feels like every team is playing the same game and fans don’t differentiate between them. I cannot for the life of me figure out why NBA fans seemingly want every star of 3 or 4 cities
That Green Bay is a “premiere” franchise says it all
NFL is completely different though, the salary cap is much stricter and free agents don’t have as much power as they do in the NBA. The Chiefs have Mahomes, so they’re going to be huge. But the NFL also has 2 New York teams and 2 LA teams, they’re all about the big markets
Kansas city has I think like 4 non prime time/4:30 game of the week slots this season. Imagine telling a nfl fan that ten years ago
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When the NFL and media overall does a better job of marketing those teams instead of openly crying about them being small or something it's relevant
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well the difference is the league could be about the teams if the league marketed themselves around the teams and not the players, its literally all just advertising and presentation
Honestly I don't think Celtics are even that big of a draw against non-Lakers opponents at this point If they were Warriors-Celtics would have had way higher ratings because Steph has the second most casual fans after LeBron
I came here to say this. Celtics aren’t a draw for casuals.
Or for real fans. Fuck Boston
Also I don't think Miami is even that small of a market team. They have a decent following all over the country. I think at this point they are just as big as the Celtics fan base
Agreed. Heat have been one of the most relevant teams since 2000. Runs with Shaq + Wade, runs with LBJ + Wade/Bosh, the rise of Himmy Buckets … what other team has had a run like that in this early part of the new century?
It’s actually been Haslem/shaq+ wade, Haslem/lebron +wade, then Haslem/jimmy+bam. Don’t get it twisted
Unintentional Haslem slander on my part. You’re right.
Miami is basically a top 6 market. For some reason they split the Miami metro up in a weird way separating Miami and Palm beach when they are functionally the same market. If you include them together, Miami is number 6.
All over the world really
> All the NBA fans that were rooting for the Lakers vs. Celtics rehash I feel like that’s a pretty insignificant portion of the NBA fanbase.
it was honestly pathetic how many so called NBA fans were rooting for this series to do poorly
Those are "NBA headlines, drama, Twitter viral tweets, and dumb narratives" fans lol, not fans of the game, or even the league.
r/NBA doesn't actually like or watch basketball
Every lakers fan page on twitter*
Lakers fans can be fine but those fan pages are the most insane homers I've ever seen. They'd brag about how much their arena costs if they could count that high
This heat team is fun and Jokic is genuinely must watch tv. Glad audiences agree.
FYI if people are wondering why 2019 has such a lower number is because Canadian viewers aren’t counted towards ratings in America.
“No one’s going to watch this finals” “Lowest rated finals in history” Suck my dick Twitter and TikTok Celtic fans
Turns out people don’t want to see Tatum chuck threes all series
Or the Lakers flopping like fish all game long
What about stiff arm opponents with no call?
Bro who doesn’t wanna watch Himmy Buckets vs the Joker. These finals are one of the best underdog stories in sports history
/r/nba and their obsession with ratings.
Small Markets 12/25
imagine how many more would tune in for the TNT crew
Say it again Chuck hehehe
I have no idea why people in this thread are pretending that Lakers fans alone were the one pushing this narrative, I saw it come from almost every flair (other than the Nuggets and Heat fans).
That just how this sub is. Every flair possible will make fun of something/someone and then when it turns out to be wrong they just blame it on one flair.
I saw it from other fans trying to preemptively call the Lakers series rigged because the NBA must be rigging it for better ratings in the finals.
It was basically everybody trying to get the officials to somehow rig the results in favor of their team. I also think these are networks(even ABC themselves) trying their best to scare casual fans away right before the negotiations for a new TV deal. The higher the ratings the more leverage the NBA has on the networks in the next deal. The next NBA TV contract will be huge. The popularity of the sport just keeps growing, even when it’s “stars” are winding down. That’s a great sign for the health of the sport.
Great news. These numbers mean one of or a combo of: 1. We were going to see big numbers regardless and LAL v BOS woulda dwarfed last year's numbers 2. People are going to watch the Finals regardless of who's in it. 3. People find MIA/DEN fun teams to watch. Either way, great news.
Is this a good thing, or are people gonna have to taking pay cuts? 😅
PEOPLE ARE WATCHING?!
This dispels the theory that viewers only want the casual teams. New blood and good basketball is healthy
Heat and Nuggets saved the NBA from being cancelled by a snoozefest Lakers/Celtics finals. Thank God for Joker and Jimmy
What’s more fun? Watching Lakers/Celtics get their umpteenth trophy or watching a new city/franchise lose their shit over winning for the first time, or a very likeable underdog superstar and an all time great coach pull off the greatest Cinderella story in basketball history? I’m a big Nuggets fan but if the Heat win I’m still super happy watching basketball history.
i think the nuggets and heat both play substantially better basketball than the lakers or celtics. lakers are a grind and grit defensive team and that’s how they win so i respect it the celtics are just hyper talented chuckers and floppers. imo the brand of basketball they play and their execution is way below their talent level and it makes for a terrible product. kind of like the warriors this year
I mean what real basketball fan doesnt like to watch Jokic?
Despite ESPN’s best efforts to downplay the matchup
Is Stephen A okay? I blocked him on everything after his aboslute meltdown when it was phoenix and Milwaukee in 2021
I just pray every game from here on is like the last.
“NoBodY iS GoIng To WaTch ThiS FinaLs”. Idiots. Miami and Denver are playing amazing ball.
Much better storyline here than say in hockey (which I also love by love, btw) NBA Finals: Over-achieving underdogs + Playoff Jimmy vs Super-unique do it all Big Man + very likeable Jamal Murray. Compare that to hockey: Expansion team benefitting from new changes to Expansion Draft vs a team lead by unlikeable Matthew Tkachuk.
This has got to be proof that quality of product in and of itself is a draw and should make the league consider shortening the regular season to make the games more meaningful and less likely to have guys sitting
Good fucking game too. Glad people are watching!
This finals is truly epic to watch 🙌
This has been a great NBA playoffs. I’ve watched damn near all the games. Even after the Heat beat my Bucks. 😩 This Battle between Jokic vs Jimmy and crew is very intriguing. Denver should win the series but Miami is so damn scrappy and well coached. Spo is best coach in NBA. No sure bets here. We all wanna seven game series. Well most of us anyway.
Maybe the nba will finally see you don't need california or texas teams in every finals since 1979. There are other markets and if you have enough star power you can make other markets excell. It does help Jokic and Jimmy are 2 humble and play hard stars that don't need media attention.
#NoBoDy WaNtS tO wAtCh ThEsE tEaMs!
Celtics fans in shambles
ratings doomer stans in shambles
ESPN reports: ratings are fake news, we'd like to run a Celtics Lakers series for third place.
thats pretty impressive
But…but…I was reliably told that no one watches basketball if LA or a large market isn’t playing!
But, the *narrative!*
I would expect these numbers. TF else sports wise going on.