TV ratings are one of the most archaic ways of measuring what people care about. We are more than 20 years in the new millennium. Who has time to get stuck on a live television schedule? I remember watching an episode of as a kid handyman when Tim “The Toolman” Taylor tried to avoid the results of a game he had taped on VHS. Nowadays when I want to watch Abbott Elementary School, I always catch it during the week. I’m not committed to when ABC airs it. Some weeks I don’t turn on Hulu at all and get a few episodes afterwards. I still manage to watch a fair amount of sport but sometimes there are conflicts and I don’t get to games on certain Saturdays, Wednesdays etc.
Maybe not everyone bothers to watch the game later, as I usually do, but that’s why we shouldn’t judge the NBA simply by the success of its nationally televised games. And even if you want to do that, no matter what post-COVID hibernation the NBA ratings have fallen into, spring is here. Smell the cherry blossoms and fill up on your allergy recipes. The nationally televised NBA games have not kept up Sunday night socceror Chicago P.Dbut on the opening weekend of the 2022 playoffs, Americans watched in a way they hadn’t in several years.
Last weekend was the most-watched opening weekend of the NBA playoffs since 2011. My guess is the crowds aren’t as put off by players’ concerns about black people being gunned down in the streets by state officials as they used to be. Last weekend’s games averaged 4.05 million viewers, and the thrilling Game 1 between the Boston Celtics and the Brooklyn Nets averaged just under 7 million viewers. For comparison, in the MLB, a league that isn’t nearly as committed to social justice as the NBA, the only postseason game outside of the World Series that has definitely been rated higher than the Nets vs. Celtics — the first game of the first round – was the New York Yankees versus Boston Red Sox single elimination wild card game. Game 6 of the NLCS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves came close under 7 million viewers, similar to Sunday game 1.
A lot has been made of NBA ratings in recent years. The reason for the decline, make your choice. The NBA’s biggest problem, however, isn’t the pleas for justice for all of humanity, stars not playing at least 10 of the 82 regular-season games, or the Real housewives of the Potomac The League’s storylines are more entertaining than LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridge’s alley-oops. The problem, if there is one, is the same as with any other television program, which is trying to define how people watch television in an environment of endless choices and people’s freedom to make those choices in their own time.
There have been two television comedies, each of which has won five consecutive Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series. Frasier and modern family, was also not in its prime by the series finale, neither having won this illustrious award for many years. The Modern Family finale was considered a smash hit with 7.4 million viewers in 2020. The Frasier final 16 years ago in 2004 had 25 million viewers.
These are shows with just over 20 episodes per season, spanning September through May. In the NBA, 30 teams play 82 regular-season games, and on all but a handful of days from October through mid-June, at least one game is televised nationally on one of four different networks — with the last few months being the most important, of course.
Athletes talk about comparing eras when it comes to who is the best player of all time. At least in sports the games are the same, give or take a few rule changes to make the product more enjoyable and reduce injuries – in that order. TV is being watched on devices and services that didn’t exist 10 years ago. Do you know when Disney+ debuted in November? 2019. That’s right, one of the world’s most subscribed streaming services debuted after the 2019 NBA Playoffs and World Series and four months before an airborne virus changed existence as we knew it.
Amazon Fire TV, that adapter capable of accommodating all the entertainment the world has to offer, didn’t exist 10 years ago. Frasiers The season finale aired three months after Facebook launched and three years before the iPhone was launched. Try scrolling through Facebook on a flip phone when it arrives at your college and create a profile with just a school-provided .edu email address.
These days there’s Apple TV+, Discovery+, FoxNation for those who long for a time when police brutality was simply TV entertainment on your local Fox affiliate, and don’t forget that TikTok draws so much of your attention that its streams help dictate the Billboard charts, and YouTube tutorials for the washed-up and/or frugal among us who want to learn a new skill.
some people take joy in bad NBA regular-season ratings like a Thursday March TNT game ever did friends. NBA basketball is an international product that people on social media can’t get enough of. Regardless of who exactly tunes in to a game each night, people are very invested in the league. Ask Turner how it feels about it investment it was published in the NBA’s branded content back in 2008.
With the greatest talent the league has ever seen and people back to their normal ways more than they have been since the Houston Rockets first played Russell Westbrook at center, Easter weekend playoff television ratings soared like Ja Morant . The NBA is valuable, and with the right finals match – the Golden State Warriors versus the Brooklyn Nets – there could be games with around 30 million viewers.
This past weekend was stellar for the NBA, and until the Phoenix Suns and Miami Heat meet in the Finals, it will be the highest-rated series since the Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Golden State Warriors in 2018. But even if the Finals matchup isn’t that compelling, the league is in a great position. They’re looking for talent all over the world, and much of the world is interested in following that talent. It got great TV ratings over the weekend, but more than anything, it was further proof that this isn’t 1979. It’s 2022. People are interested in the NBA. What did the relatable, I’m sorry, fictional Mark Zuckerberg say The social network: Facebook is cool, that’s a priceless advantage.
The NBA is damn cool. That makes it pretty valuable regardless of how many people watch games 2 and 3.
