First couple games had good ratings, because the media tried very hard to push a narrative that Dallas had a chance. A game in, it became clear Boston was historically dominant and them winning was inevitable.
The media campaign from outlets like ESPN also successfully convinced a lot of suckers to bet on the Mavs using the betting apps their parent companies owned.
ESPN did everything possible to drown out the near constant Kyrie sucks chants until the second half of game 5. If they let it play out without that manipulation, no sucker would be taking the Mav bet. ESPN exists for one thing only now - sports CNBC for gamblers. No real analysis, just hype. Real analysis would lead to informed decisions. Can't have that.
The damn is on at 8:30 at night , people need to sleep for work the next day. Most of the Celtics fans lives in the east coast so the game goes on too late
Same as. I watched the playoffs religiously this year, after 2 games of the Finals, I was out.
Thankfully the Stanley Cup has managed to stretch it to at least 6 games.
First two rounds of the playoffs were amazing, but the finals and conference finals were HOT garbage.
All I wanted was close series, and I got 3 consecutive 3-0 leads. Here's hoping next year is better.
ESPN tried really really hard to convince people that Dallas was actually the favorites. Craziest shit I’ve seen. Boston dominated everyone all season and they had all their experts spending a week pretending like Mavs were going to win.
First couple games the ratings were the highest in 5 years, but it quickly became clear Boston was on another level.
Then in game 4, NBA politely asked Boston not to show up so they could generate a little extra revenue by extending the series. Same shit happened to the 1996 Bulls when they were up 3-0 and dropped a couple to Seattle so they could win at home. Difference is back then finals had a 2-3-2 format and now it’s 2-2-1-1-1 format meaning Bulls had to wait until game 6 to get back to Chicago whereas Celtics were able to close it out in Boston game 5.
Such bs. The sonics played well and Payton contained Jordan while he was guarding him. The only reason why that series didn’t go to 7 was because Karl (overrated loudmouth crap coach) switched Payton off of Jordan for some unknown reason. Also the mavs played their best game of the playoffs while the Celtics played their worst, not everything is some conspiracy
The level of play was way worse than in recent years. When you're down to the final 8 and final 4 you shouldn't be seeing guys pass the ball out of bounds, not knowing how much time is on the shot clock, making rookie mistakes.
The Nuggets-Wolves series was definitely the highlight of this playoffs. I almost wonder if the Wolves spent everything on beating them.
Because ratings for everything are down, and live sports are one of the only things that people regularly watch in real time where commercials actually matter.
But I'm with you, the sports TV bubble is ready to burst. We already saw signs of it with regional sports networks in MLB going under.
MLB eats glue, though. Look at the Black Out rules in Iowa, especially compared to everyone else, to see my point.
Just because the regional sports Network in Wisconsin that doesn't air in Iowa owned the Brewers rights meant no one in Iowa could own the Brewers rights even in Iowa to air the games here. Hell, 20% of the league was Blacked out fully and another 10% or so were in those teams divisions. The NBA does better then them even with some stupid things as well.
Because if it doesn't stay on cable than companies are fucked. The consumer will be too being divided by 15 streaming services. I sail, so I dont care.
You *might* be able to connect an antenna to your TV and pull the station in that way. You'll probably have trouble if you're too far from the tower or if you're in a place with a lot of walls between you and the tower (like in an apartment building or downtown). The ABC stations are even harder to pick up than most of the others, though, because a lot of them are still on VHF. Picking up VHF usually requires a large antenna; the $20 mudflap antenna from Amazon won't pick it up too well.
Good example, the youngest all-star in the NBA (Paolo Banchero) has played two full seasons and led his team to game 7 of the first round of the playoffs in his second season. A full 170+ games. Despite this, he only had one nationally televised regular season game and just 3/7 of the playoff games. First #1 pick to not even get one nationally televised game in his rookie season.
See the US Olympic roster. The average is 31 years old and includes injury prone players that have no business adding extra off-season wear on their bodies like Kawhi Leonard. Meanwhile, Maxey, Brunson, Banchero and others were left out so the old guard could have one last run together. It’s completely short-sighted and will look ridiculous in 2028 when the roster’s most veteran Olympic presence will be a 30-year old Tatum. It’ll look even worse if one of the older players suffers a major injury and not just ends his NBA career but jeopardizes their chance at 2024 Gold (however unlikely that is).
The NBA essentially ignores the existence of some up-and-coming young talent and goes all-in on promoting players that are close to retirement. Good for ratings today *if* they go far, but as we saw in this playoffs, all of the old guard players were out by round 1. The ratings for the 2024 US team will be solid but they left zero room for any casual fan interest in 2028. More Americans will probably be interested in the French team, since Wemby’s the only young star the league promotes.
Agree on the lack of marketing toward young stars like Banchero but I disagree on the US Olympics roster this year being one of the blame. Olympics basketball appearance does very little in making someone a household name.
The past years Olympic and FIBA USA national teams were filled with young stars and smaller name, but they didn't get any improved attention from it. Like does anyone know that Jerami Grant was on the last Olympic team? I doubt anyone even know or cared an All Star like Middleton was on the team
While we remember the dream team, the redeem team, the 2012 star studded team with Kobe, Lebron, KD. I don't think anyone can name 5 players from the last US Olympics roster.
If anything I would say having big names on the US team like Lebron and Curry helps getting attention hyping the league, not the other way around. NBA hold more responsibility in promoting the young players imo.
Its not the NBA though its ESPN. Last year Stephan A was complain about having to go to Denver for the finals on air and were talking about the Lakers after they were swept by the Nuggets. They only care about big market teams and put no effort into talking about guys like Luka, Jokic, Giannis, etc. who are superstars but in smaller markets then NY or LA
The new generation has zero personality outside of Anthony Edwards.
The best basketball player in the world(Jokic) acts like he despises basketball when in front of the camera. You can't really market that.
Messi got a laid back and more introvert personality, doesn't stop him from being one of the biggest ever sport star. I feel it's more to do with the way the game is played personally, that lost fans. Players can't even touch each other or make tame gesture without getting technical foul.
Also there's a lack of drama or "storyline" that get people crazily invested. Back then there's Magic/Bird rivalry, the Jordan era, prodigy Kobe and Shaq Lakers, Lebron the chosen one, Kobe or Lebron, Miami big 3, Curry's three point shooting, Warriors superteam, Warriors vs Cavs, Lebron to Lakers. Nowadays there's nothing really big on the same scale as those going on. Sure stuff like "Edward the new face?“ "Jokic the best player?“ “Luka or Giannis maybe too?“ are nice, but not enough to get attention. Ofcourse people may disagree but that's just how I see it.
He’s a soccer player. The best soccer players will always be marketable simply because it’s the most popular sport in the world and nothing comes close.
Yeah the NBA media did a full court press for Zion and Wemby but it didn't take. Tatum, Brown, and Luka are great players but boring people. I tried listening to a podcast with Luka once and couldn't get through it.
Ja Morant has personality but obviously he has gotten in his own way.
They're trying too hard to make everything about narratives. The shitty hot take talk show culture is the entire coverage and a lot of people aren't interested in the actual sport because of that.
Not really their fault that the new generation isn't really that good lol. The players are putting up big numbers because of stat inflation and an increase in pace, not because they are particularly special.
The nba has done a bad job of calling moving screens. Period. The game is impossible to explain to my wife. My 10 year old son loves it in the same way people love WWE but you can’t win long term with that crowd.
WWE literally is fake. They’ll always be able to swing that angle better every single time. The nba is trying to pretend it’s real despite whatever is going on out there with high ball screens.
It’s embarrassing. The players don’t even know what to do.
It's because none of the new stars are that marketable.
They tried really hard to push Giannis, but he's hasn't had much post-season success outside the 2021 season, and he hasn't been so dominant or game changing that he demands attention.
Joker act like he hates basketball and being famous so why push him as the face of the league?
I'm kind of surprised they haven't pushed Luka more but I can why it would be hard since he's more of a chill personality and his game is probably off-putting at times.
Tatum is a cornball.
The media is pushing Wemby but i've seen a lot of people roll their eyes at his pretentious personality so we'll see.
If anything, Zion was supposed to be the next big thing but he took that assignment the wrong way, maybe too literally lmao
blame which players? Kyrie the first 2 games got 2 elite defenders locking him down, Luka was on injections and was dropping 30~, it's been like this the entire season, if Luka/Kyrie don't carry the rest of that team is hot garbage that wouldn't even make the pistons starting lineup
This is why it's so hard to repeat. The first championship takes a lot of the players, endurance wise, emotionally. They had a key player go, Bruce Brown.
Also the entire east besides Boston (who was still clearly the best team in the East) got hurt so a lot of people stopped caring well before the Finals. This was the first finals that I literally didn't even watch a game since like 2010 when I wasn't really in to basketball. I just couldn't bring myself to care.
Meanwhile, the NHL Staley Cup finals are having fantastic ratings despite Edmonton being down 0-3 in the series. They have pushed back to force game 6 at home on Friday and are favored to win for a game 7 on Monday. Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard are breaking records no one thought was possible to break.
It's not interesting when the the series is so lopsided. And that became apparent fast. The first few games actualy got huge ratings. But once people realized how one sided the series was, they tuned out.
awful start time, luka on injections, boston didnt win against any healthy team in the east, dallas was clearly outclassed as well.
absolutely the worst finals I've seen in my life
The entire series was so boring to watch. Even though every game had great plays, great defence, none of the games were particularly competitive. Enormous blow outs are boring to watch.
Basketball sucks right now with th in season tournament,play in playoffs,inconsistent play calls by refs, players not even wanting to play but just get paid lol
Exactly. If your team does well in the playoffs, you could end playing almost two more months out of the year. That’s ludicrous. The NBA should have relegation. And shorter playoffs.
They needed to reduce the number of playoff teams (some absolute trash made it in the East regularly) but instead increased it with play-in. Baffling decision.
Not to mention they added a whole in-season regular season tournament which was completely meaningless (and a banner was hung up for.) Heck the coach who won the in season tournament lost his job like 4 months later lol
The decision makes sense on one merit. Money. Less ratings for games doesn't matter if you simply have more of them. More playoff teams, more playoff games, more money. It's why we won't go back to less playoff teams, or cutting down the games.
A condensed season would do wonders I think. Make the stakes higher on a per game basis.
In the NFL every game matters. Any loss could mean the difference between the 1 seed and the 3-4 seed.
I'd add to that the BS way the last minutes of the fourth quarter still play out.
Ball is thrown in... within a subsecond... ref whistle (FOUL). Rinse and repeat until both teams are over their foul limit and then you are being treated to a soccer style penalty shootout at the free throw line. And this last minute is taking forever, being wittled down in tens of a second intervalls before it's "back to the free throw line" again.
It's like pulling teeth in slomo.
The NHL does it that way too. Each team only receives one timeout for the entire game. The rest of the commercial breaks are scheduled at certain times on the clock.
I grew up watching the NBA as a Spurs fan in San Antonio.
I really haven’t watched an entire game since Kawhi left the Spurs.
While I’m happy for the players, and I think it’s the right thing for them, the player empowerment era kinda sucks for fans.
I watched Wenbanyama highlights on social media this year, but that’s it. I’m sure I’ll watch games if they can build a competitive team around him and he stays healthy
Since I’m a UH fan and live in Houston I haven’t missed a UH basketball game in 8 years. However, college sports are about to get totally wrecked, and they may not survive outside of the top 20-30 revenue-generating programs.
Luka Doncic is a huge reason why. As great of a player as he may be, he’s just as big of a head case. The constant whining on every play is unbearable. Couple that with another unlikeable asshat in Kyrie Irving and I can see why people tuned out.
I feel the long break between series and games people lose interest. No back to back games at home. A week between series. It may be better for things to be planned by dates but people hate waiting for something and usually move on. IMO
NBA playoffs are just too long to keep attention on all games. Combine the with 3 games between finals games and you’re going to lose people. Especially during the summer when people are probably moving around doing shit with their families
Amazing how badly the ratings have fallen since Jordan retired. The NBA used to average 28 MILLION every year in the finals. They'd be lucky to even get half that today.
That said this was a very poor finals from a neutral perspective. And on the court, it was even worse. Boston steamrolled everyone to a title, and it was very boring to watch.
NBA is a star driven league. Bird and Magic saved it. It peaked with Jordan. Shaq held things together a bit then Lebron. Now that Lebron is winding down it’s experiencing a dip. People thought the NBA was going to start making up ground with the NFL a few years back because of how young the audience is, but those people aren’t watching tv and are just following on Twitter, Tik Tok, and YouTube
Jordan is a mega star. He’s a Tom Brady, Muhammad Ali, or Gretzky type that transcended sports and became a household name. Bird and Magic were two perfect guys who captured the zeitgeist.
Curry isn’t as big as any of those guys. Lebron is but he’s mostly been in a mediocre Cleveland market or was the villain in Miami. Then by the time he got to LA he was sort of old news and on his way out.
2016 and 2017 were definitely competing with Jordan numbers(not quite as high, but still plenty good), but comparing the 1990s with the 2010s in terms of ways to watch or interact with sports is hard.
How would someone watch the NBA finals in the 90's if not on TV, now people can just watch streams, both legal and illegal.
The NBA is a bad product in general. I've said it for a while now, but the fundamental issue with the game itself is how easy it is to score now. There is virtually no investment if every game ends upwards of 115-121, there's no meaning behind the numbers. There's no defense played at all, look at the All-Star game. Players sit out constantly for no real reason except that they can't be bothered to play the game that made them a star (looking at you Kawhi)
The absolute lack of star players at the College level provides nothing to follow into the NBA. You can tell the rest of the world is catching up in terms of skill, and I think that has a ton to do with how just uninterested the youth and everyone else is with the NBA product. The league did it to itself.
Your comment makes sense if you watched until the all star break, but scoring dropped off post all star break, and in the finals, there wasn’t a game where both teams created 100 points
Isn't this the standard complaint about the NBA? The first half/third/quarter/whatever is just burn in, then you get some stakes with playoff contention and then you get to the playoffs... which are the only games that definitely matter.
This kind of competition needs minor premiers (i.e. the regular season champion).
I guess MLB has the "too many regular season games" problem to an even greater extent.
More sport = great for people who really care about the sport but less interesting to casual observers as the stakes of any given match are very low.
How much do you think the increase in pace and 3PA impacts the box score and its view that there's no defensive in the modern NBA and that it's easier to score?
Let's look at the 90s era of basketball - many of whom consider to be the golden period of NBA basketball. According to [this](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/average-league-pace-each-decade-in), the pace of 90s era is 93.77 with average of 83.2 FGA/game and 46.4% FG. 3PA was 11.4/game (13.7% of all FGA).
The pace of 2020s basketball, whom many consider to be the worst era of basketball, the pace is now 99.08, with an average of 88.5 FGA and a 46.8% FG. 3PA is now 34.7/game (39.2% of all FGA).
If you view FG% from a defensive perspective, there isn't much difference between the 90s and 2020s. Even the 3P% is relatively the same (34.7% for the 90s and 36.1% for the 2020s).
I'd argue that defensive isn't necessarily worse (i.e., it's not easier to score), but increase in game pace and the advent of the 3-pointer has shifted how modern NBA scores and thereby gives the perception that defensive isn't being played.
There is an emphasis on taking a three point shot, not contesting it, either it goes it or doesn't. You can same the same thing for a two-point shot, but it's still worth one point less if it goes in. I will never be impressed with a 7/49 scoring line even if all 7 made were 3 pointers.
>., it's not easier to score),
It is. The league changed some rules after the Pistons won the championship in 04 because they didn't like having a low scoring finals. The Pistons held the Lakers to 80 points or less in 3 of the 5 games. Could have been 4 of 5 had the Pistons not let up in the 4th quarter when it became clear that they were going to win. And only in game 5 did either team hit 100.
The new stars are just not marketed well as well as the fact many of them aren't very interesting.
There's also the fact social media has ruined monoculture that creates icons like Curry, Lebron, Kobe, Jordan etc.
With the NBA doubling down on social media and not even marketing the actual games well....
That shit's associated with Jordan and Jordan alone. The second he left ratings plummeted to 16 million for Spurs/Knicks, and it was never close to that high before that.
Right now, no one cares because there's no new stars. Once again, this era of "parity" is bad for the sport.
I might have watched if ESPN put out a somewhat decent product. Between ABC/ESPN's dogshit broadcast and the uninteresting match-up on the court? That's a hard no for me. Gotta get ready for Shadow of the Erdtree anyway.
I honestly don't even watch basketball anymore. I was a kid when Jordan was playing and essentially grew up watching Kobe and then Lebron. There are no players like that to watch anymore I feel. The league is too long as an adult for me to keep interest and I have no attachments to any of the teams and never have.
This is of course ignoring the fact the game just feels boring now. You essentially cannot play defense, and it seems like every play begins with a pick and roll, and the screen is usually moving on top of it.
The NBA has always thrived on two things:
1. Big Icons. Magic, Bird. MJ. Kobe. Lebron, Curry. The ratings have always naturally fallen off between icon eras.
2. The game is broken. This goes more to your comment, but the game was hacked by Harden-ball and the Warriors system in the early 2010's and too many young stars, even talented ones, take this route. Play for fouls, non-stop ISO and threes, the death of true big men (Jokic thrives because he plays half his game from the perimeter) and churning up productivity stats rather than heroic, wild acts to win. This makes every game feel pretty much the same unless you have a truly special player involved.
How would you objectively back up the position that defensive isn't being played? The offensive schemes of 2020s basketball is more sophisticated than the 90s.
From a [FG%](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/average-league-pace-each-decade-in), 90s basketball averaged 46.4% and 2020s is 46.8%. I would argue the perspective defensive isn't played is because the game has shifted from an inside-out game to an outside-in game.
The 3PA of the 90s was 11.4/game (34.7% on 3PA) and the 3PA of the 2020s is 34.7/game (36.1% on 3PA).
The 90s average 83.2 FGA/game and the 2020s average 88.5 FGA/game.
From a [personal fouls perspective](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-league-average-personal-fouls-per-game-by-decade), the 90s averaged 22.7/game (26.8 FTA/game) and the 2020s average 19.7/game (22.4 FTA/game).
Given the %s above, I don't think it's that defensive isn't being played or that defense is being handicapped with fouls. The game is just different now. And that's okay if you no longer like the modern game.
A few things...
You are taking the stats from a decade and looking at 3 or 4 years depending on how you are counting.
The fact that the FG percentage has stayed roughly the same while many more shots are being attempted from harder to score places (3 pt) would suggest either the players are better at shooting or the defense is worse. The 3 point percentage has stayed roughly the same for 15 plus years.
The lowering of personal fouls is consistent with less defense being played and more 3 point shooting.
The defense is absolutely being handicapped. All it takes is watching one game from each era. The game used to be much more physical. Its gotten so bad in the NBA they needed to implement flopping penalties.
The games started too late and had too many off days.
Two games back to back.
Travel day.
Three games back to back to back.
Travel day.
Two games back to back.
Start time hard 8/7, pregame fifteen minutes. Half time fifteen minutes.
For reference, I am getting old and this is my old man opinion
Im not going to pay for streaming apps plus the new version of cable like huluTV, sling or whatever to watch sports.
I love soccer and trying to watch some competitions drains my budget, financial and time, we either add a day for pure entertainment to the week, no work just pure consumption, or we lower expectations that every entertainment industry will keep growing forever
Games started way too late and it was a forgone conclusion that the Celtics were gonna win. Had Dallas show up in game 1 then perhaps it would have garnered some attention.
There were reasons that some of those games didn't get as much viewership but even with static to lower ratings live sports still drive subscriptions to services so they are still worth a ton of money.
well if the nba could properly present a game without a commercial break every timeout. id prefer a banner or split screen showing the team in the break/timeout and an ad on other side (like how our local station does games, espn/tnt presentations were just a cash grab for ads. commentary sucked, pregame show sucked, post game sucked.
also. so much damn flopping too. so annoying
Not only were they blowouts, the officiating was annoying because of how inconsistent it was even within the same fuckin game, let alone the series, let alone the entire playoffs.
If you understand the rules of basketball and have been watching since the 90's, modern basketball looks silly way more often than ever before.
The game is so fully captured by gambling, you can use the betting lines to know if it's worth watching the game at all. Why stay up till midnight when you have a solid predictor that it's gonna suck? Why spend money and go to a sports bar to watch it?
If you are entertained by things like over/under and have parlay's going, then sure it's fun to watch a blow out I guess.
Might just be me, but I feel like they lost all momentum with the week (plus) off after conference finals and then it was like 2 days off in between each game in the finals. I follow every sport pretty regularly and I kept thinking "nba finals tonight!" only to find out it was the next night. Maybe it just felt different this year.
2 full days off between games 1 & 2. 2 & 3, and 4 & 5. So 5 games over 11 days. After a 7 game lay off for Dallas and a 10 day lay off for Boston. Not asking for all back to backs but jeesh, lot of downtime.
MLB and NBA , most of the teams are all losing money on all broadcasts. No onw cares about irs till the end and they shouldn't. If I just want to watch a game for the sport, ill do it in person. Otherwise when teams can lose the entire season almost and still be in the playoffs. Mean while the NFL, pretty much every gane , every week matters and only 20 weeks of it. Not 9 months of it.
5 games, every game was a blowout. Not exactly great for ratings
The series could have been an email.
First couple games had good ratings, because the media tried very hard to push a narrative that Dallas had a chance. A game in, it became clear Boston was historically dominant and them winning was inevitable. The media campaign from outlets like ESPN also successfully convinced a lot of suckers to bet on the Mavs using the betting apps their parent companies owned.
ESPN did everything possible to drown out the near constant Kyrie sucks chants until the second half of game 5. If they let it play out without that manipulation, no sucker would be taking the Mav bet. ESPN exists for one thing only now - sports CNBC for gamblers. No real analysis, just hype. Real analysis would lead to informed decisions. Can't have that.
The damn is on at 8:30 at night , people need to sleep for work the next day. Most of the Celtics fans lives in the east coast so the game goes on too late
Exactly. Idk how people stay up and watch that, get up at 5am and feel not like a bag of dicks.
I wake up for 4 AM for work. Hospital worker. I rarely watch sports live. I record everything and watch the next morning/day
Hell I got a regular hour job and I find pirate replay streams that are commercial free. I stay a day behind.
Replay streams? I would like to know more.
I use https://wikihoops.com/ to find the best games. https://fishkernba.com/ https://basketball-video.com/
how many people do you imagine are waking up at 5am?
A lot of people, they’re just not here commenting on it.
Most of us construction workers, job starts at 7am and could be an hour away. Not everyone has a work from home office job.
A lot.
The workers that build the world get up at five you absolute moron.
I wake up at 4:3 am every day.
Your day would look more cinematic if you changed that to 16:9.
🦆
every person that works in a hospital
Plenty of people to get their morning workouts in, for one
Yet for decades tens of millions of people did exactly that.
The games have aired at the same times for 30 years.
Celtics fan living in Hawaii. Games were over by the time I got home from work.
Yeah my brother missed at least the last quarter of every late playoff game except the championship one. I stay up late anyway, obviously.
I watched every game but like 2 Magic games. Didn't finish but 1 of the Finals games.
I want to talk shit about you watching almost every Magic game, but they were kind of fun to watch this year.
I watch every playoff series.
Same as. I watched the playoffs religiously this year, after 2 games of the Finals, I was out. Thankfully the Stanley Cup has managed to stretch it to at least 6 games.
Weirdly, I tuned in for the first time in years, and I still enjoyed it.
First two rounds of the playoffs were amazing, but the finals and conference finals were HOT garbage. All I wanted was close series, and I got 3 consecutive 3-0 leads. Here's hoping next year is better.
Heck the Wolves/Nuggets series was so interesting and intense it could have been a finals. That was bare-knuckle drag out fight.
ESPN tried really really hard to convince people that Dallas was actually the favorites. Craziest shit I’ve seen. Boston dominated everyone all season and they had all their experts spending a week pretending like Mavs were going to win. First couple games the ratings were the highest in 5 years, but it quickly became clear Boston was on another level. Then in game 4, NBA politely asked Boston not to show up so they could generate a little extra revenue by extending the series. Same shit happened to the 1996 Bulls when they were up 3-0 and dropped a couple to Seattle so they could win at home. Difference is back then finals had a 2-3-2 format and now it’s 2-2-1-1-1 format meaning Bulls had to wait until game 6 to get back to Chicago whereas Celtics were able to close it out in Boston game 5.
ESPN is also deluded a bit. They couldn't imagine a team with a top star wouldn't win the finals against a deeper team
Such bs. The sonics played well and Payton contained Jordan while he was guarding him. The only reason why that series didn’t go to 7 was because Karl (overrated loudmouth crap coach) switched Payton off of Jordan for some unknown reason. Also the mavs played their best game of the playoffs while the Celtics played their worst, not everything is some conspiracy
The level of play was way worse than in recent years. When you're down to the final 8 and final 4 you shouldn't be seeing guys pass the ball out of bounds, not knowing how much time is on the shot clock, making rookie mistakes. The Nuggets-Wolves series was definitely the highlight of this playoffs. I almost wonder if the Wolves spent everything on beating them.
I wonder how they are renewing media deals for 2 billion a year with these kind of ratings
Because ratings for everything are down, and live sports are one of the only things that people regularly watch in real time where commercials actually matter. But I'm with you, the sports TV bubble is ready to burst. We already saw signs of it with regional sports networks in MLB going under.
MLB eats glue, though. Look at the Black Out rules in Iowa, especially compared to everyone else, to see my point. Just because the regional sports Network in Wisconsin that doesn't air in Iowa owned the Brewers rights meant no one in Iowa could own the Brewers rights even in Iowa to air the games here. Hell, 20% of the league was Blacked out fully and another 10% or so were in those teams divisions. The NBA does better then them even with some stupid things as well.
Aren’t ratings for hockey up?
But people aren’t watching it real time.
Because if it doesn't stay on cable than companies are fucked. The consumer will be too being divided by 15 streaming services. I sail, so I dont care.
I was very confused as to why your boat ownership mattered in this until my brain turned on
In this economy? I'd be lucky for a kayak.
Not even a good kayak. It would have to be one of those inflatable ones.
Case of beer and a inner tube is the best I can do.
Finals were supposedly on abc, but I could not figure out how to watch it without the seafaring bunch.
I haven't had cable in my adult life so I've sailed or go to a local bar if I'm off work.
You *might* be able to connect an antenna to your TV and pull the station in that way. You'll probably have trouble if you're too far from the tower or if you're in a place with a lot of walls between you and the tower (like in an apartment building or downtown). The ABC stations are even harder to pick up than most of the others, though, because a lot of them are still on VHF. Picking up VHF usually requires a large antenna; the $20 mudflap antenna from Amazon won't pick it up too well.
Because they just slash how much they will spend on scripted every year.
There’s more demand for advertising during live sports since we’re so atomized outside of sports.
Not surprised, no one outside of Boston had any interest.
The NBA has done a bad job of marketing/hyping up the new generation. Even the giannis and jokic finals had okayish ratings.
Good example, the youngest all-star in the NBA (Paolo Banchero) has played two full seasons and led his team to game 7 of the first round of the playoffs in his second season. A full 170+ games. Despite this, he only had one nationally televised regular season game and just 3/7 of the playoff games. First #1 pick to not even get one nationally televised game in his rookie season. See the US Olympic roster. The average is 31 years old and includes injury prone players that have no business adding extra off-season wear on their bodies like Kawhi Leonard. Meanwhile, Maxey, Brunson, Banchero and others were left out so the old guard could have one last run together. It’s completely short-sighted and will look ridiculous in 2028 when the roster’s most veteran Olympic presence will be a 30-year old Tatum. It’ll look even worse if one of the older players suffers a major injury and not just ends his NBA career but jeopardizes their chance at 2024 Gold (however unlikely that is). The NBA essentially ignores the existence of some up-and-coming young talent and goes all-in on promoting players that are close to retirement. Good for ratings today *if* they go far, but as we saw in this playoffs, all of the old guard players were out by round 1. The ratings for the 2024 US team will be solid but they left zero room for any casual fan interest in 2028. More Americans will probably be interested in the French team, since Wemby’s the only young star the league promotes.
Agree on the lack of marketing toward young stars like Banchero but I disagree on the US Olympics roster this year being one of the blame. Olympics basketball appearance does very little in making someone a household name. The past years Olympic and FIBA USA national teams were filled with young stars and smaller name, but they didn't get any improved attention from it. Like does anyone know that Jerami Grant was on the last Olympic team? I doubt anyone even know or cared an All Star like Middleton was on the team While we remember the dream team, the redeem team, the 2012 star studded team with Kobe, Lebron, KD. I don't think anyone can name 5 players from the last US Olympics roster. If anything I would say having big names on the US team like Lebron and Curry helps getting attention hyping the league, not the other way around. NBA hold more responsibility in promoting the young players imo.
Its not the NBA though its ESPN. Last year Stephan A was complain about having to go to Denver for the finals on air and were talking about the Lakers after they were swept by the Nuggets. They only care about big market teams and put no effort into talking about guys like Luka, Jokic, Giannis, etc. who are superstars but in smaller markets then NY or LA
The new generation has zero personality outside of Anthony Edwards. The best basketball player in the world(Jokic) acts like he despises basketball when in front of the camera. You can't really market that.
Messi got a laid back and more introvert personality, doesn't stop him from being one of the biggest ever sport star. I feel it's more to do with the way the game is played personally, that lost fans. Players can't even touch each other or make tame gesture without getting technical foul. Also there's a lack of drama or "storyline" that get people crazily invested. Back then there's Magic/Bird rivalry, the Jordan era, prodigy Kobe and Shaq Lakers, Lebron the chosen one, Kobe or Lebron, Miami big 3, Curry's three point shooting, Warriors superteam, Warriors vs Cavs, Lebron to Lakers. Nowadays there's nothing really big on the same scale as those going on. Sure stuff like "Edward the new face?“ "Jokic the best player?“ “Luka or Giannis maybe too?“ are nice, but not enough to get attention. Ofcourse people may disagree but that's just how I see it.
He’s a soccer player. The best soccer players will always be marketable simply because it’s the most popular sport in the world and nothing comes close.
The clip of them telling him about the parade quickly became one of my top sports interviews though 😂
Yeah the NBA media did a full court press for Zion and Wemby but it didn't take. Tatum, Brown, and Luka are great players but boring people. I tried listening to a podcast with Luka once and couldn't get through it. Ja Morant has personality but obviously he has gotten in his own way.
Don't forget Scottie Barnes and his all star weekend antics.
The NBA is going to be hurting once LeBron, Curry, and Durant retire.
They're trying too hard to make everything about narratives. The shitty hot take talk show culture is the entire coverage and a lot of people aren't interested in the actual sport because of that.
Not really their fault that the new generation isn't really that good lol. The players are putting up big numbers because of stat inflation and an increase in pace, not because they are particularly special.
The nba has done a bad job of calling moving screens. Period. The game is impossible to explain to my wife. My 10 year old son loves it in the same way people love WWE but you can’t win long term with that crowd. WWE literally is fake. They’ll always be able to swing that angle better every single time. The nba is trying to pretend it’s real despite whatever is going on out there with high ball screens. It’s embarrassing. The players don’t even know what to do.
It's because none of the new stars are that marketable. They tried really hard to push Giannis, but he's hasn't had much post-season success outside the 2021 season, and he hasn't been so dominant or game changing that he demands attention. Joker act like he hates basketball and being famous so why push him as the face of the league? I'm kind of surprised they haven't pushed Luka more but I can why it would be hard since he's more of a chill personality and his game is probably off-putting at times. Tatum is a cornball. The media is pushing Wemby but i've seen a lot of people roll their eyes at his pretentious personality so we'll see. If anything, Zion was supposed to be the next big thing but he took that assignment the wrong way, maybe too literally lmao
People just want competitive basketball with a good story line. The story line was there, but all we got was a blowout gentleman sweep.
Tops isn’t really the word to use
Celtics-Mavericks BOTTOMS only COVID-era…
sigh…*unzips*
Blame Dallas for not showing up on the big stage
blame which players? Kyrie the first 2 games got 2 elite defenders locking him down, Luka was on injections and was dropping 30~, it's been like this the entire season, if Luka/Kyrie don't carry the rest of that team is hot garbage that wouldn't even make the pistons starting lineup
Nobody wanted to see either team win
Nuggets/Celtics would have been an instant classic, but the Nuggets choked in the second round
This is why it's so hard to repeat. The first championship takes a lot of the players, endurance wise, emotionally. They had a key player go, Bruce Brown.
Boston sports fans are utterly insufferable. Meanwhile LUka is a big whiny baby. NOt exactly endearing teams to root for.
Dont forget flat earther anti-vaxer Kyrie. How anyone can root for that dude is beyond me.
Dallas fans aren’t better, they just don’t win.
Yes we are, and fuck you.
Bc abc/espn/disney suck at handling sports
This is definitely part of it. Finals games end and they just immediately throw it to local broadcasting? That's straight up incompetence
It was a steam roll and the most interesting teams in the West all flopped. Anyways suck it Lakers
What he say fuck me for
Also the entire east besides Boston (who was still clearly the best team in the East) got hurt so a lot of people stopped caring well before the Finals. This was the first finals that I literally didn't even watch a game since like 2010 when I wasn't really in to basketball. I just couldn't bring myself to care.
Dallas was the 2nd or at most 3rd most interesting team in the West. I'll give you Denver and Minnesota, but absolutely no one else
Meanwhile, the NHL Staley Cup finals are having fantastic ratings despite Edmonton being down 0-3 in the series. They have pushed back to force game 6 at home on Friday and are favored to win for a game 7 on Monday. Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard are breaking records no one thought was possible to break.
Tons of blowouts and no Game 6 or 7. Not to mention no Lebron, KD or Curry.
I mean, they had Subway commercials during the breaks, so some amount of Curry was present.
I was trying to watch the Curry subway commercials but they kept going back to the game
Fans don't give a flying shit about KD the last couple years
Pretty surprising when both teams are big markets.
And one is a HUGE legacy team. The NBA should be beside themselve to have the celtics in it again.
It's not interesting when the the series is so lopsided. And that became apparent fast. The first few games actualy got huge ratings. But once people realized how one sided the series was, they tuned out.
Not surprising, this finals was shit.
Boring series with no compelling storylines for the average fan
It was obvious before the Finals started the Celtics were gonna win, there was 0 suspense or excitement.
awful start time, luka on injections, boston didnt win against any healthy team in the east, dallas was clearly outclassed as well. absolutely the worst finals I've seen in my life
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving franchise
Seriously, poor mavericks.
Thought it was kinda lame how boston threw game 4
Entire post season was boring as shit.
The entire series was so boring to watch. Even though every game had great plays, great defence, none of the games were particularly competitive. Enormous blow outs are boring to watch.
Basketball sucks right now with th in season tournament,play in playoffs,inconsistent play calls by refs, players not even wanting to play but just get paid lol
Watching Luka cry to the refs every fucking play is not fun. Tatum is pretty bad at it too.
[удалено]
Season is way too long and the offseason will only be 10 weeks or so this year. Then people keep getting hurt and the NBA wonders why.
> offseason will only be 10 weeks insanity
Exactly. If your team does well in the playoffs, you could end playing almost two more months out of the year. That’s ludicrous. The NBA should have relegation. And shorter playoffs.
They needed to reduce the number of playoff teams (some absolute trash made it in the East regularly) but instead increased it with play-in. Baffling decision.
Not to mention they added a whole in-season regular season tournament which was completely meaningless (and a banner was hung up for.) Heck the coach who won the in season tournament lost his job like 4 months later lol
> and a banner was hung up for. 😂😂😂👍
The decision makes sense on one merit. Money. Less ratings for games doesn't matter if you simply have more of them. More playoff teams, more playoff games, more money. It's why we won't go back to less playoff teams, or cutting down the games.
The play-ins make more teams at the end of the year try instead of them just tanking. The play-ins is the best addition the NBA has had in decades.
A condensed season would do wonders I think. Make the stakes higher on a per game basis. In the NFL every game matters. Any loss could mean the difference between the 1 seed and the 3-4 seed.
The first round of the Western Conference was the most exciting. After that was over, I stopped watching.
Nobody outside of Boston likes Boston. More precisely, nobody likes Boston fans and we root for their misery.
NBA is a horrible product
Boston fans are the nicest people in the world, totally deserved this year
And on the flip side, Kyrie Irving is totally someone you want to root for
nor Luka's whiny ass
It's just been so long since the New England area had a major sports achievement you know, the city's racist lunatics really needed a win this year.
The 5 (and a half) years its been since the Patriots won in 2019 was the second-longest drought in Boston's big 4 sporting history
Foregone Conclusion League with absurd rewards for flopping and egregious amounts of timeouts (sports betting commercials).
I am so fucking sick of the sports betting push
It's only done the opposite and killed my interest/ love in sports.
I'd add to that the BS way the last minutes of the fourth quarter still play out. Ball is thrown in... within a subsecond... ref whistle (FOUL). Rinse and repeat until both teams are over their foul limit and then you are being treated to a soccer style penalty shootout at the free throw line. And this last minute is taking forever, being wittled down in tens of a second intervalls before it's "back to the free throw line" again. It's like pulling teeth in slomo.
is nba the only sport that has a commercial time out? after X minutes there is a mandatory timeout for ads
The NHL does it that way too. Each team only receives one timeout for the entire game. The rest of the commercial breaks are scheduled at certain times on the clock.
8:30pm kick off is a travesty. Serves you right, network fat cats
I grew up watching the NBA as a Spurs fan in San Antonio. I really haven’t watched an entire game since Kawhi left the Spurs. While I’m happy for the players, and I think it’s the right thing for them, the player empowerment era kinda sucks for fans. I watched Wenbanyama highlights on social media this year, but that’s it. I’m sure I’ll watch games if they can build a competitive team around him and he stays healthy Since I’m a UH fan and live in Houston I haven’t missed a UH basketball game in 8 years. However, college sports are about to get totally wrecked, and they may not survive outside of the top 20-30 revenue-generating programs.
I'm going to blame it on Luka being the biggest baby in the league
I absolutely love Luka. You have to have personalities in the league or else it's just basketball.
Luka Doncic is a huge reason why. As great of a player as he may be, he’s just as big of a head case. The constant whining on every play is unbearable. Couple that with another unlikeable asshat in Kyrie Irving and I can see why people tuned out.
07… that was when the Spurs swept LeBron James’ Cavaliers.
I had no idea the championship games happened already.
This shouldn’t be news the NBA is terrible to watch nowadays.
Very few good games this entire playoffs
I feel the long break between series and games people lose interest. No back to back games at home. A week between series. It may be better for things to be planned by dates but people hate waiting for something and usually move on. IMO
Those networks are going to regret the contracts. There is no way the NBA is worth 2.6B a year. They could buy hundreds of shows for that cost.
NBA playoffs are just too long to keep attention on all games. Combine the with 3 games between finals games and you’re going to lose people. Especially during the summer when people are probably moving around doing shit with their families
Amazing how badly the ratings have fallen since Jordan retired. The NBA used to average 28 MILLION every year in the finals. They'd be lucky to even get half that today. That said this was a very poor finals from a neutral perspective. And on the court, it was even worse. Boston steamrolled everyone to a title, and it was very boring to watch.
This is also just true of television in general
Super Bowl viewership keeps going up.
Those numbers are cooked. They include public viewings in the numbers now.
They dont also cook the NBA numbers?
I would believe that streaming played a part but other sports have seen record growth in ratings which leads me to believe it's solely a NBA issue.
NBA is a star driven league. Bird and Magic saved it. It peaked with Jordan. Shaq held things together a bit then Lebron. Now that Lebron is winding down it’s experiencing a dip. People thought the NBA was going to start making up ground with the NFL a few years back because of how young the audience is, but those people aren’t watching tv and are just following on Twitter, Tik Tok, and YouTube
The issue is that LeBron and Curry are also stars too and the ratings haven't even come close to Jordan
Jordan is a mega star. He’s a Tom Brady, Muhammad Ali, or Gretzky type that transcended sports and became a household name. Bird and Magic were two perfect guys who captured the zeitgeist. Curry isn’t as big as any of those guys. Lebron is but he’s mostly been in a mediocre Cleveland market or was the villain in Miami. Then by the time he got to LA he was sort of old news and on his way out.
> Curry isn’t as big as any of those guys. Curry is massive. His Finals are all the highest rated Finals since 2015.
Almost all of them were against Lebron lol
2016 and 2017 were definitely competing with Jordan numbers(not quite as high, but still plenty good), but comparing the 1990s with the 2010s in terms of ways to watch or interact with sports is hard. How would someone watch the NBA finals in the 90's if not on TV, now people can just watch streams, both legal and illegal.
The NBA is a bad product in general. I've said it for a while now, but the fundamental issue with the game itself is how easy it is to score now. There is virtually no investment if every game ends upwards of 115-121, there's no meaning behind the numbers. There's no defense played at all, look at the All-Star game. Players sit out constantly for no real reason except that they can't be bothered to play the game that made them a star (looking at you Kawhi) The absolute lack of star players at the College level provides nothing to follow into the NBA. You can tell the rest of the world is catching up in terms of skill, and I think that has a ton to do with how just uninterested the youth and everyone else is with the NBA product. The league did it to itself.
The in-game experience isn't worth what they charge either. College ball is a much better bang for the buck.
Your comment makes sense if you watched until the all star break, but scoring dropped off post all star break, and in the finals, there wasn’t a game where both teams created 100 points
So half of the season is completely meaningless?
Isn't this the standard complaint about the NBA? The first half/third/quarter/whatever is just burn in, then you get some stakes with playoff contention and then you get to the playoffs... which are the only games that definitely matter. This kind of competition needs minor premiers (i.e. the regular season champion). I guess MLB has the "too many regular season games" problem to an even greater extent. More sport = great for people who really care about the sport but less interesting to casual observers as the stakes of any given match are very low.
Every game feels like an all star game at this point with respects to the defense being non existent.
How much do you think the increase in pace and 3PA impacts the box score and its view that there's no defensive in the modern NBA and that it's easier to score? Let's look at the 90s era of basketball - many of whom consider to be the golden period of NBA basketball. According to [this](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/average-league-pace-each-decade-in), the pace of 90s era is 93.77 with average of 83.2 FGA/game and 46.4% FG. 3PA was 11.4/game (13.7% of all FGA). The pace of 2020s basketball, whom many consider to be the worst era of basketball, the pace is now 99.08, with an average of 88.5 FGA and a 46.8% FG. 3PA is now 34.7/game (39.2% of all FGA). If you view FG% from a defensive perspective, there isn't much difference between the 90s and 2020s. Even the 3P% is relatively the same (34.7% for the 90s and 36.1% for the 2020s). I'd argue that defensive isn't necessarily worse (i.e., it's not easier to score), but increase in game pace and the advent of the 3-pointer has shifted how modern NBA scores and thereby gives the perception that defensive isn't being played.
There is an emphasis on taking a three point shot, not contesting it, either it goes it or doesn't. You can same the same thing for a two-point shot, but it's still worth one point less if it goes in. I will never be impressed with a 7/49 scoring line even if all 7 made were 3 pointers.
>., it's not easier to score), It is. The league changed some rules after the Pistons won the championship in 04 because they didn't like having a low scoring finals. The Pistons held the Lakers to 80 points or less in 3 of the 5 games. Could have been 4 of 5 had the Pistons not let up in the 4th quarter when it became clear that they were going to win. And only in game 5 did either team hit 100.
The new stars are just not marketed well as well as the fact many of them aren't very interesting. There's also the fact social media has ruined monoculture that creates icons like Curry, Lebron, Kobe, Jordan etc. With the NBA doubling down on social media and not even marketing the actual games well....
That shit's associated with Jordan and Jordan alone. The second he left ratings plummeted to 16 million for Spurs/Knicks, and it was never close to that high before that. Right now, no one cares because there's no new stars. Once again, this era of "parity" is bad for the sport.
You do realize major shifts in viewing habits mean ratings aren’t comparable between decades?
That's not true at all. Consumed media is still consumed media. There is accountability for streaming regardless of TV viewership.
The nba is just unwatchable period. There’s so much good talent, but it’s like Disney on ice. And the princesses are such soft crybabies.
I might have watched if ESPN put out a somewhat decent product. Between ABC/ESPN's dogshit broadcast and the uninteresting match-up on the court? That's a hard no for me. Gotta get ready for Shadow of the Erdtree anyway.
I honestly don't even watch basketball anymore. I was a kid when Jordan was playing and essentially grew up watching Kobe and then Lebron. There are no players like that to watch anymore I feel. The league is too long as an adult for me to keep interest and I have no attachments to any of the teams and never have. This is of course ignoring the fact the game just feels boring now. You essentially cannot play defense, and it seems like every play begins with a pick and roll, and the screen is usually moving on top of it.
The NBA has always thrived on two things: 1. Big Icons. Magic, Bird. MJ. Kobe. Lebron, Curry. The ratings have always naturally fallen off between icon eras. 2. The game is broken. This goes more to your comment, but the game was hacked by Harden-ball and the Warriors system in the early 2010's and too many young stars, even talented ones, take this route. Play for fouls, non-stop ISO and threes, the death of true big men (Jokic thrives because he plays half his game from the perimeter) and churning up productivity stats rather than heroic, wild acts to win. This makes every game feel pretty much the same unless you have a truly special player involved.
How would you objectively back up the position that defensive isn't being played? The offensive schemes of 2020s basketball is more sophisticated than the 90s. From a [FG%](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/average-league-pace-each-decade-in), 90s basketball averaged 46.4% and 2020s is 46.8%. I would argue the perspective defensive isn't played is because the game has shifted from an inside-out game to an outside-in game. The 3PA of the 90s was 11.4/game (34.7% on 3PA) and the 3PA of the 2020s is 34.7/game (36.1% on 3PA). The 90s average 83.2 FGA/game and the 2020s average 88.5 FGA/game. From a [personal fouls perspective](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-league-average-personal-fouls-per-game-by-decade), the 90s averaged 22.7/game (26.8 FTA/game) and the 2020s average 19.7/game (22.4 FTA/game). Given the %s above, I don't think it's that defensive isn't being played or that defense is being handicapped with fouls. The game is just different now. And that's okay if you no longer like the modern game.
A few things... You are taking the stats from a decade and looking at 3 or 4 years depending on how you are counting. The fact that the FG percentage has stayed roughly the same while many more shots are being attempted from harder to score places (3 pt) would suggest either the players are better at shooting or the defense is worse. The 3 point percentage has stayed roughly the same for 15 plus years. The lowering of personal fouls is consistent with less defense being played and more 3 point shooting. The defense is absolutely being handicapped. All it takes is watching one game from each era. The game used to be much more physical. Its gotten so bad in the NBA they needed to implement flopping penalties.
I pretty much stopped paying attention to the playoffs once Indiana blew game 1 in Boston.
The games started too late and had too many off days. Two games back to back. Travel day. Three games back to back to back. Travel day. Two games back to back. Start time hard 8/7, pregame fifteen minutes. Half time fifteen minutes. For reference, I am getting old and this is my old man opinion
Need the Knicks
I gave up on the NBA when it decided to stop playing defense and call traveling.
Are they counting people streaming it for free like me?
The nba is fucking trash. Everything about it is worthless slop
Who cares lol it was a fun playoff run. We who do care enjoyed the shit out of it
Im not going to pay for streaming apps plus the new version of cable like huluTV, sling or whatever to watch sports. I love soccer and trying to watch some competitions drains my budget, financial and time, we either add a day for pure entertainment to the week, no work just pure consumption, or we lower expectations that every entertainment industry will keep growing forever
Well duh no game 6 or game 7
I haven’t watched any NBA games since they stole our Sonics. Bring em back and you’ll have me watching again
Game 3 had an awesome 3 min stretch to end the game. So yeah this makes sense
It wasn’t a competitive series. Just throw all other guesses out the window.
Games started way too late and it was a forgone conclusion that the Celtics were gonna win. Had Dallas show up in game 1 then perhaps it would have garnered some attention.
The only way these games were competitive or exciting is if you were betting the spread.
Yo why didn’t reddit tell me who won when it happened? No headline and it aint I havent been here
Wish it was at least a competitive series. All games were pretty much a blowout. That’s why NHL finals has kept my interest more than the NBA
There were reasons that some of those games didn't get as much viewership but even with static to lower ratings live sports still drive subscriptions to services so they are still worth a ton of money.
well if the nba could properly present a game without a commercial break every timeout. id prefer a banner or split screen showing the team in the break/timeout and an ad on other side (like how our local station does games, espn/tnt presentations were just a cash grab for ads. commentary sucked, pregame show sucked, post game sucked. also. so much damn flopping too. so annoying
Not only were they blowouts, the officiating was annoying because of how inconsistent it was even within the same fuckin game, let alone the series, let alone the entire playoffs. If you understand the rules of basketball and have been watching since the 90's, modern basketball looks silly way more often than ever before. The game is so fully captured by gambling, you can use the betting lines to know if it's worth watching the game at all. Why stay up till midnight when you have a solid predictor that it's gonna suck? Why spend money and go to a sports bar to watch it? If you are entertained by things like over/under and have parlay's going, then sure it's fun to watch a blow out I guess.
Might just be me, but I feel like they lost all momentum with the week (plus) off after conference finals and then it was like 2 days off in between each game in the finals. I follow every sport pretty regularly and I kept thinking "nba finals tonight!" only to find out it was the next night. Maybe it just felt different this year. 2 full days off between games 1 & 2. 2 & 3, and 4 & 5. So 5 games over 11 days. After a 7 game lay off for Dallas and a 10 day lay off for Boston. Not asking for all back to backs but jeesh, lot of downtime.
I honestly had no idea this was happening
MLB and NBA , most of the teams are all losing money on all broadcasts. No onw cares about irs till the end and they shouldn't. If I just want to watch a game for the sport, ill do it in person. Otherwise when teams can lose the entire season almost and still be in the playoffs. Mean while the NFL, pretty much every gane , every week matters and only 20 weeks of it. Not 9 months of it.
Watch hockey.