This will make you feel better: Low ratings for Game 1 NBA Finals 2006

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

People had no problem saying the teams were boring when SA and Detroit played on a school night at 8:00.

Quit making excuses for them.

The overwhelming problem with the ratings is all the bull media hype the league runs all year long. They cram Kobe, TMac, Lebron, and Vince down everyone's throat, then when they're not there at the end people don't hvae as much interest.

Until the NBA changes its marketing strategy to market teams and and team basketball, ratings will continue to suck.

[strangeweather]

People have been tuning out the NBA playoffs for years -- ever since Jordan retired from Chicago. This year, there was fairly wide media acclaim that the playoffs were exciting, but it takes a while for that to filter through to the public. If this is a tightly contested series and goes 6 or 7, expect the ratings to pick up as the series goes on. If one team looks to run away with it, they won't.

Even if the sports media are shouting from the rooftops that this is an exciting series, there may be less people that tune in this year to watch it then hear about it secondhand, and start to wonder if they should start watching basketball again next year. If Stern wants to make the NBA more popular, what really needs to happen is 2-3 years in a row of exciting, dramatic playoffs.

[strangeweather]

The overwhelming problem with the ratings is all the bull media hype the league runs all year long. They cram Kobe, TMac, Lebron, and Vince down everyone's throat, then when they're not there at the end people don't hvae as much interest.

Until the NBA changes its marketing strategy to market teams and and team basketball, ratings will continue to suck.

Why exactly? Football markets teams, and does very well with it. Basketball isn't football. Golf markets individual players and seems to do just fine. Basketball isn't golf, either.

Basketball's greatest era of popularity was when they were marketing guys like Magic, Bird, and Jordan. There's only 10 guys on a basketball court at a time so it's more practical to focus on the personalities of key players than it does with 22 players on a football field, all of them wearing helmets.

I'm not saying that marketing individual personalities is sure to work, but what makes you so sure that it can't, and that marketing the teams is the path to prosperity?

[Sense]

Hope it continues like this, stern will have to stop tryin to gettin teams in the finals rather than the teams earnin it..

[clubalien]

Fans might watch the game just to see how TO turns out. I will always watch since I am a san antonio spur and dallas cow fan no matter players. Just saying because of TO some other peopl might watch dallas this season. Then again dallas cows are americas team. and you NFL for taking the turkey game away from dallas.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Why exactly? Football markets teams, and does very well with it. Basketball isn't football. Golf markets individual players and seems to do just fine. Basketball isn't golf, either.

Well, there is the very obvious fact that football is a team sport, and the league markets teams, and is successful, whereas golf is an individual sport, one that their target demographic of middle aged men who go out and hack their way to a 92 every weekend identify with, and accordingly in an individual sport the marketed individual does well.

I'm sorry if you can't see the correlation.

As to Bird/Michael/Magic... They were also meeting each other in the Finals and spearheaded a couple of the recent most NBA dynasties.

The other thing Bird and Magic had going for them is they put on one of the last great enigmatic duels in college ball on the grandest stage of them all (Final Four championship game) before going pro.

The Bird-Magic battle in 79' is widely attributed to being the catalyst for the present day success and popularity of the Final Four and March Madness as the most exciting event in American sports, and second world wide to the World Cup. You don't get that from today's college players due to people leaving early.

Like I said, the league marketed those guys, and they made it to the Finals. Hence, mission accomplished for the league - great Finals TV ratings.

Nowadays, the league markets a bunch of guys who aren't making it to the Finals, and *shockingly* the ratings suck. Everyone gets told all year long that TMac, King James, Kobe, etc. are the , and every year they're done playing ball by mid-May and the average joe doesn't have any interest in who's left.

If the league wants good ratings in the Finals it needs to figure out who's most likely to be there at the end and market those players and teams all year long.

Basically, market players from Phoenix, Dallas, and SA from the west, and Miami and Detroit from the East, and they'll get good ratings.

I'm sorry you don't get it strangeweather, maybe you're related to Stern after all.

[strangeweather]

If the league wants good ratings in the Finals it needs to figure out who's most likely to be there at the end and market those players and teams all year long.

Basically, market players from Phoenix, Dallas, and SA from the west, and Miami and Detroit from the East, and they'll get good ratings.

Yay, more gratuitous insults from AHF. My day is complete.

Michael Jordan was a tentpole they hung league marketing on long before he was a fixture in the games in June.

Working harder at marketing to sell marketable players on successful teams like Nash, 'Sheed, Dirk, Chauncey, DWade, Amare, Tim, Manu, Tony -- that makes perfect sense.

It's not immediately clear to me that your previous post

Until the NBA changes its marketing strategy to market teams and and team basketball, ratings will continue to suck.

is advocating that. It sounds a lot like your previous post was advocating marketing the uniform, not the player, which is the classic NFL playbook.

I still don't see why that's a better strategy than marketing players.

[George Gervin's Afro]

I did not watch a second of the game..

[Trainwreck2100]

It doesn't help that the Finals have to start a week after all the other games, it's cause stupid ABC. NBC didn't have a set date they just rolled with the punches.

[Slinkyman]

It doesn't help that the Finals have to start a week after all the other games, it's cause stupid ABC. NBC didn't have a set date they just rolled with the punches.

How is that logical? When the superbowl is 2 weeks from the AFC/NFC championship game it doesn't have lower ratings.

[JealousOnesNV]

ESPN and ABC's coverage of the NBA sucks....No true heated rivalries between teams or players.....This is why you have low ratings. The league needs to look at how they used to do things in the 80's and early 90's especially when it comes to the rules of the game.

[SPARKY]

What is killing the Finals is that NY or LA isn't involved. After that, it's the fact that Dallas has a neanderthal as a star.

[clubalien]

the superbowl is only one game

the nba is multiple games

Not sure how much that impacts but i think it is one of the reason ratings are different

[ponky]

What is killing the Finals is that NY or LA isn't involved. After that, it's the fact that Dallas has a neanderthal as a star.

While the first part of your statement is correct, the latter part doesn't explain why *the neanderthal* is still more interesting than your little wide-eyed timmy. The ratings were still higher than last year and will probably go higher on Sunday and as the series continues.


http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsAr...ION-NBA-DC.XML

NBA finals give ABC ratings bounce Thursday
Fri Jun 9, 2006 7:23pm ET163

By Cynthia Littleton

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The start of the NBA finals on Thursday had a bit more bounce for ABC than the opening salvo of last year's championship series.

Game 1 between the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat, which ended in a 90-80 Mavericks victory, averaged 9.3 household rating/15 share in Nielsen Media Research's top 56 "metered" markets. That was a 6% gain over the first game of last year's San Antonio Spurs-Detroit Pistons series and probably enough to give ABC the nightly bragging rights. (Reliable national estimates for the live game coverage were not immediately available.)

Elsewhere in primetime, NBC had some traction with the 10 p.m. premiere of the lottery-winner drama "Windfall," which drew 9 million viewers and 3.3 rating/9 share in adults 18-49, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research. "Windfall" moved the needle from its 9:30 p.m. lead-in, a repeat of "My Name is Earl" (6.2 million, 2.6/7).

Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance" (10 million, 4.0/11) continued to perform well in the 18-49 measure, but was still topped in viewers by CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" repeat (12.4 million, 3.3/9).

CBS' 8 p.m. summer series "Game Show Marathon" (6.8 million, 1.9/6) remained sluggish in the 8 p.m. hour.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.


another article about local ratings:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...s/14784217.htm

[SPARKY]

Wow. 6%.

Thanks Shaq. Yeah, America gives a damn about a 7 foot tall Kraut. Dumb .

[leemajors]

While the first part of your statement is correct, the latter part doesn't explain why *the neanderthal* is still more interesting than your little wide-eyed timmy. The ratings were still higher than last year and will probably go higher on Sunday and as the series continues.

they would probably be even better if they hadn't waited 5 days. the general public doesn't wait with baited breath for the NBA finals.

[ponky]

Wow. 6%.

Thanks Shaq.

It's hilarious how you are so f*cking bitter, I love reading all your moronic posts, I read them aloud so eveyone here can get a laugh. Don't worry about ratings, you won't be in the Finals next year. I'm not saying it will be the Mavs but it certainly won't be the Spurs.

[ponky]

they would probably be even better if they hadn't waited 5 days. the general public doesn't wait with baited breath for the NBA finals.

yeah, ABC and the NBA deference to NBA sucks...i used to like it when the games were on NBC...we'll see how it goes when the turnarounds change to 48 hours

[SPARKY]

It's hilarious how you post in here all the ing time. Nobody gives a damn about your fat ass. Seriously. Just go.

[SPARKY]

It's hilarious how you are so f*cking bitter, I love reading all your moronic posts, I read them aloud so eveyone here can get a laugh. Don't worry about ratings, you won't be in the Finals next year. I'm not saying it will be the Mavs but it certainly won't be the Spurs.

Oh no.

[ponky]

It's hilarious how you post in here all the ing time. Nobody gives a damn about your fat ass. Seriously. Just go.

I'm not going anywhere. It's funny how you keep posting on threads started by Mavs fan (re: this post) and then request that we leave. hahahahahahaha

[leemajors]

It's hilarious how you are so f*cking bitter, I love reading all your moronic posts, I read them aloud so eveyone here can get a laugh. Don't worry about ratings, you won't be in the Finals next year. I'm not saying it will be the Mavs but it certainly won't be the Spurs.

ok pop, RC. pack it in, there's no way the spurs can get to the finals.

[SPARKY]

I'm not going anywhere. It's funny how you keep posting on threads started by Mavs fan (re: this post) and then request that we leave. hahahahahahaha

Yeah, I guess it's hilarious when I tell you to shut the up. Shouldn't you be ing your "man"?

[ponky]

ok pop, RC. pack it in, there's no way the spurs can get to the finals.

lol, i'm obviously just kidding, i don't have any idea how it will go next year, i expect the spurs will tweak their roster and come back gunning next season but the west is tough...i just like to hate on assholes like sparky who just toss around insults and don't contribute much

[SPARKY]

I like it when I piss trolling es off.