NBA Postseason, Where Amazing TV Ratings No Longer Happen!
Quick, guess which year was Michael Jordan’s last in the NBA Finals?
Marketed far more on the power of individual stars than any other US team sport, NBA basketball suffers the most when it lacks those charismatic stars in postseason play.
1987-1989 were the end of the Magic Johnson/Larry Bird era. 1990 saw an interim year and a ratings low. 1991 began the Michael Jordan championship era, with the Chicago Bulls winning championships in 1991, 1992 and 1993. During Jordan’s minor league baseball excursion years of 1994 & 1995, the Hakeem Olajuwon lead Houston Rockets didn’t have nearly the star power and ratings crashed again.
Tired of being a mediocre baseball player, Jordan’s return brought NBA postseason ratings up again for 1996, 1997 and 1998. His final year being the best finals ratings of his career (and the highest HH ratings we have in our data going back to 1974). Another interim year after Jordan’s exit and ratings plunged again. One might have thought that the Kobe/Shaq lead LA Lakers might have raised ratings back to Jordanesqe levels, but they merely halted the decline near the 1990 & 1994 lows from 2000-2002.
NBA Postseason Ratings, Playoffs and Finals, 1987-2007
|
Year |
Playoffs |
Telecasts |
Finals |
Telecasts |
Winner/Runner-up |
|
1987 |
9.13 |
19 |
24.12 |
6 |
Lakers/Boston |
|
1988 |
9.17 |
16 |
21.70 |
7 |
Lakers/Detroit |
|
1989 |
9.72 |
21 |
21.26 |
4 |
Detroit/Lakers |
|
1990 |
9.04 |
19 |
17.19 |
5 |
Detroit/Portland |
|
1991 |
9.74 |
22 |
23.91 |
5 |
Chicago/Lakers |
|
1992 |
10.90 |
24 |
20.84 |
6 |
Chicago/Portland |
|
1993 |
9.56 |
24 |
27.21 |
6 |
Chicago/Phoenix |
|
1994 |
10.85 |
24 |
17.25 |
5 |
Houston/New York |
|
1995 |
10.68 |
22 |
20.08 |
4 |
Houston/Orlando |
|
1996 |
10.08 |
22 |
24.86 |
6 |
Chicago/Seattle |
|
1997 |
10.56 |
22 |
25.59 |
6 |
Chicago/Utah |
|
1998 |
8.58 |
25 |
29.04 |
6 |
Chicago/Utah |
|
1999 |
7.80 |
31 |
16.01 |
5 |
San Antonio/New York |
|
2000 |
7.28 |
27 |
17.40 |
6 |
Lakers/Indiana |
|
2001 |
8.13 |
31 |
19.00 |
5 |
Lakers/Philadelphia |
|
2002 |
6.87 |
7 |
15.68 |
4 |
Lakers/New Jersey |
|
2003 |
6.67 |
6 |
9.86 |
6 |
San Antonio/New Jersey |
|
2004 |
4.82 |
9 |
17.94 |
5 |
Detroit/Lakers |
|
2005 |
5.34 |
10 |
12.54 |
7 |
San Antonio/Detroit |
|
2006 |
8.82 |
15 |
12.97 |
6 |
Miami/Dallas |
|
2007 |
|
9.29 |
4 |
San Antonio/Cleveland |
Without the Lakers in the finals in 2003, the NBA the San Antonio Spurs/New Jersey Nets finals produced a ratings catastrophe. The return of the Lakers in 2004 brought the finals back to their previous early century ratings. The following two years seemed to establish a new baseline just under 13 million average viewers, a level that would have been considered terrible just 5 years earlier, but probably had David Stern breathing a sigh of relief. That didn’t last long when the NBA’s newest name star, LeBron James, and his otherwise overmatched Cleveland Cavaliers were swept away by the boringly successful San Antonio Spurs taking NBA finals ratings with them to their lowest level in the years for which we have data (1974-).
What does this year’s NBA finals ratings picture look like?
If the NBA gets its ideal ratings matchup of the Kobe Bryant lead LA Lakers against the Pierce-Garnett-Allen lead Boston Celtics, I’ll guess that the finals will average 13 million viewers. The other matchups are too numerous to speculate about at this time, but I’ll update when the finals are set. Sadly for the NBA, many of the reasonably possible matchups would leave them staring into another ratings abyss.
2006 & 2007 data is Live+SD, all previous years are Live viewing.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2008 Nielsen Media Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
I love the sudden death drop during the time my team was winning–the 1989-1990 “Bad Boys” Detroit Pistons: Isaiah Thomas,Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman (before he went crazy), John Salley, Bill Lambeers.
God, that was a great team.
Only basketball I could stand to this day.
My dad’s company bought renewable season tickets (fourth row) back when the Bulls (to put it nicely) sucked. Needless to say they were like gold when Michael and company were playing. Best NBA games I’ve ever been to!
If it’s Lakers-Celtics in the finals you are way too low. I think it would average like 20 million viewers. Why do you think it will do less than 2004?
20 million is way too high a guess for any matchup today. The finals haven’t *ever* seen that many viewers without Magic or Jordan, and the new faces don’t even come close.
I base my estimate for a Lakers/Celtics on the following factors.
- all broadcast viewership is trending down, just getting to 2004 levels would surprise me
- the Lakers with Kobe *and* Shaq have averaged 17.5m in their finals appearances, against a variety of teams, this time it’s only Kobe.
- last years Finals didn’t crack 10m, sure the matchup/series was terrible, but I don’t think folks bounce back in that fast.
But you’ve given me an idea. Once the finals matchup is set, we’ll have a “you guess the finals viewership” contest. Not that we’ll have any prizes, it’ll be for pride
In 2006 the Wade/Shaq Heat vs. the Mavs was a very compelling series (at least to me), but it had only Shaq, and it didn’t crack 13m.
Kobe/Shaq vs. Allen Iverson did only 19m and that was 3 stars. I don’t have Q-Score info, but I think Iverson is still more recognizable to the masses than KG even if he did get kicked out of today’s game vs. the Lakers
Iverson is definitely a bigger star than KG, but the Sixers were a huge underdog in that series and after they won the first game- it was over. Nobody thought they could beat the Lakers. If it’s Celtics/Lakers, it will be a very even series where people will be split in who they think will win. The Celtics have a richer history than the Sixers also.
YOU GUYZ MUST REMEMBER, KOBE BRYANT IS THE DRAW CARD IN THE NBA POINT BLANK…HE’S THE MILLENIUM VERSION OF MUHAMMED ALI…YOU EITHER LOVE TO SEE HIM WIN ® LOVE TO SEE HIM LOSE…EITHER WAY YOU LOVE TO WATCH
who cares about the lakers