NBA Not At All Concerned With Finals Ratings, Former League Exec Says

Indianapolis is the 25th-largest market in the U.S. Oklahoma City is 47th. But is the league really worried that Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, or some other thriving metropolis isn’t represented on the grandest stage?

Yeah, not so much. In today’s era of television, streaming and the rest, ratings are barely a concern. Especially when you consider the NBA just signed a massive media rights deal with ESPN/ABC, NBC, and Amazon. That goes into effect next season.

“There’s really no direct impact between ratings and financial success, certainly in the near term,” a former senior NBA executive told Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic. “If you have bad ratings for the next decade then that limits your TV rights. But I don’t think anyone in the NBA is worried about that right now because the revenues for TV are guaranteed.”

This despite the fact the entire state of Oklahoma consists of about four million people — or half of New York City, as Vorkunov noted. So yeah, if nothing else, merchandise sales are likely to take a hit. Or at least a bigger hit than if the Finals featured the Knicks, or LeBron James, or Stephen Curry, or even Jayson Tatum and the Celtics.

That said, this may be the new normal for the NBA. James and Curry are on the way out, presumably within the next five years, if not sooner. And for the seventh straight year, the NBA will have a new champion — meaning someone who hasn’t won a title in any of the last seven years.

That’s a first, and parity may be the name of the game for quite some time moving forward.

Of course, there is one thing that the entire league hopes for beyond just ratings.

“A longer series benefits everyone,” Vorkunov wrote. “That’s where the teams, league and networks make money.

“Every incremental game will make each team, plus the league and players, through their revenue-sharing plan, more money. ABC stands to make even more.”

But market size of the teams in the Finals? Yeah, not a big deal, or really even anything close to a thought.