NBA Finals Draw Record Low Ratings

[Chris Childs]

NEW YORK (AP) - The NBA finals were a television bust.

San Antonio's four-game sweep of Cleveland finished with a record-low 6.2 television rating and 11 share on ABC, Nielsen Media Research said Friday.

That was down 27 percent from the 8.5/15 for Miami's six-game victory over Dallas last year and 5 percent under the previous low, a 6.5/12 for San Antonio's six-game win over New Jersey in 2003. The NBA finals averaged 9.3 million viewers this year.

San Antonio's series-winning 83-82 victory on Thursday night got a 6.5/12, down 17 percent from the 7.8/14 for Game 4 last year.

The NHL Stanley Cup finals also hit a record low this year, with NBC averaging a 1.6/3 for the final three games of Anaheim's five-game victory over Ottawa. The first two games were televised on the cable network Versus.

The rating is the percentage watching a telecast among all homes with televisions, and the share is the percentage tuned in to a broadcast among those households with televisions on at the time. A ratings point represents 1,114,000 households.

[Leetonidas]

Fascinating.

[Extra Stout]

I guess we are NOT, in fact, all witnesses.

[dallaskd]

I really only watched one full game. the rest..i watched about 10-15 minutes.

[mavsfan1000]

Yeah the finals wasn't that interesting to me either. Detroit/San Antonio would've been more interesting. Cleveland had no chance before the series started. San Antonio>>>>Cleveland.

[Marcus Bryant]

How about outside the US?

[ducks]

damm when people know who will win why watch
cavs suck

[Extra Stout]

How about outside the US?
We probably won't know for a while, but the last two years it was around 100 million.

[word]

Knicks drew a rating of ZERO those nights.

[dallaskd]

We probably won't know for a while, but the last two years it was around 100 million.

should be more with all the foreigners the spurs have.

[dallaskd]

Is that how you spell it?

[Extra Stout]

should be more with all the foreigners the spurs have.
France will turn in somewhere around 1 million, and Argentina will have had 2-3 million, but the biggest market by far is China, which probably will have had upwards of 50 million viewers.

What is funny/sad about that is that even per capita, more Chinese will tune in to watch the Spurs than Americans will.

[TheSanityAnnex]

Not sure why low ratings would piss off Spurs fans, the series was uber boring, but you guys won, end of story.

[Extra Stout]

The Spurs turn basketball into soccer, or maybe ping pong.

[Extra Stout]

The Spurs are the Nutella of hoops.

[Next Superstar]

Well its a simple solution, pretend this series didn't happen and have the warriors and suns play for the title. I really hope we get a chance to play the suns in the playoffs next year, that could bring offensive basketball back after this debacle.