NBA Playoff Ratings Up Which Suggests the NBA is No Longer Woke
NBA ratings are up. Does that signify the de-woke-ification of the league? From a scientific standpoint, we may never know for sure, but we do know that many people tuned in on Sunday to watch the Golden State Warriors lip sync for their basketball lives. Via Sports Business Journal:
NBA playoff games are averaging 3.36 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, TNT and NBA TV, up 7% from the same point last season (30 games). Kings-Warriors Game 4 on Sunday afternoon saw 7.5 million viewers on ABC, marking the best first-round game in 21 years, dating back to a series-clinching Lakers-Trail Blazers Game 3 in 2002 on NBC (8.6 million). The telecast peaked at 10.4 million from 6:00-6:15pm ET. Kings-Warriors also was the best program on any network (sports or otherwise) on Sunday.
As a follow-up, Austin Karp of SBJ says the NBA is having it's best ratings postseason in a dozen years. And it has The Athletic's Richard Deitsch dreaming about even bigger numbers should the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers both manage to advance.
It is not crazy to say that a Game 7 between LAL and GS will beat the NBA Finals average. And perhaps by a lot.
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) April 26, 2023
What this post presupposes is that popular players and teams are good for ratings. Put them in close contests where it doesn't seem like there's a predetermined outcome - no superteams currently seem super-super - and the ratings go up. Or it's some other completely unquantifiable factor. There's really no way to tell.