The NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and Denver Nuggets were not expected to attract particularly high ratings. According to preliminary overnight figures from Nielsen Media Research, Game 1 of the NBA Finals averaged 7.62 million viewers and had a 2.21 rating in the age 18-49 demographic. This number is significantly down from the 11.4 million viewers in the Celtics’ matchup against the Golden State Warriors last year.
Sunday night’s Game 2 ratings have yet to be released, but based on the conversation between Ken Carman and Anthony Lima on 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland, basketball fans and media pundits should expect another report of low numbers.
“We all knew that there weren’t going to be as good ratings,” show co-host Ken Carman said. “The Heat do not generate the sense of outrage, [and] Denver does not generate the same type of passion as what LA and Boston do, clearly.”
Carman watched parts of the first two NBA Finals games, but opted to watch the morning recaps on YouTube instead of the game in its entirety. He surmises many basketball fans from around the country are doing similarly because of the ostensible lack of appeal – despite superstars Jimmy Butler and Nikola Jokić participating in the action.
If the Cleveland Cavaliers were in the NBA Finals, Carman acknowledged that he would be watching; however, his wife gave him a reason to turn it off when she asked him to watch an episode of Succession. Neglecting to watch the entirety of a professional sports league’s final championship round is a practice show co-host Anthony Lima regarded as something new to modern media consumption.
“There used to be a time where you couldn’t even really do a show if you didn’t watch the NBA Finals or the World Series,” Lima told Carman. “That was not an indictment of you because there have been World Series games I haven’t watched…The ratings of the NBA had all been up until we got to the NBA Finals and they have crashed.”
The Walt Disney Company recently reported its most-watched playoffs on ESPN platforms in the last 11 years, averaging nearly 5.8 million viewers on broadcasts. Year-over-year, viewership of the Western Conference Finals was up 17% from last year’s presentation, which was on TNT, and 44% higher than the last time ESPN televised the proceedings in 2021.
Despite the intriguing NBA Finals matchup and storylines associated with the action, the ratings indicate that many basketball fans are choosing not to watch the action because of the lack of tradition involved in the matchup. The Denver Nuggets have never won a championship in franchise history, let alone qualify for the NBA Finals, while the Miami Heat have not taken home the Larry O’Brien Trophy since 2013. The team, at that time, was led by the ‘Big Three’ of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, all of whom are expected to be named members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
“You’re basically saying there’s nothing that game could have done that would have made you stick with it?,” Lima asked Carman. “Jokić had a run in the third quarter where he made every play on offense and then was coming up with fast breaks, dribbling coast to coast; then he made a couple of defensive plays. You look up at the box score [and it is], ‘Holy crap, he’s going to score 40 easily.’”
Nonetheless, Carman recognized that his radio show is a local program, and in turn needs to appeal to its audience. As a result, he felt like it was safe to watch Succession and then fall asleep, recognizing just how fundamental topic selection is in terms of captivating and retaining listeners.
“If it’s not one of the three teams in Cleveland – if the Cavs were still there, fine, that’s the job,” Carman expressed. “If it’s this, even though it’s the Finals and I have no national show to do tomorrow, I can go to bed, no big deal.”
