Not even LeBron James can save the NBA from a massive television ratings fall when games are played in the summer and autumn.
According to ShowBuzz Daily, the first two games of the Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat have averaged just a combined 11.5 million viewers (7.4 million for Game 1, and a miserable 4.5 for Game 2).
That makes these Finals the least-watched since keeping track of such pr0gram started in the early 1990s, per Jon Paulson of Sports Media Watch and Bobby Burack of OutKick.
Meanwhile, Game 3 of the Finals peaked at an averaged of 4.4 million viewers and a 1.8 ratings, per ShowBuzz — also the lowest in league history.
As has been the case since 2002, all Finals games are broadcast by ABC.
“The Lakers’ easy win, in which they led by as many as 32, sank 48% in ratings and 45% in viewership from Warriors-Raptors last year (7.9, 13.38M) and 59% and 58% respectively from Cavaliers-Warriors in 2018 (10.0, 17.67M), which aired as scheduled in late May,” Paulsen wrote of Game 1 of The Finals.
Burack suggested the decline in NBA viewership is at least partially the result of the league’s left-leaning politics.
“There is no way for the media to spin this positively,” Burack wrote. “Declines of this magnitude are unheard of. Then, factor in the tank-job occurring with the league’s biggest individual and team draw in the Finals — the NBA is officially a disaster.
“A ship doesn’t sink for one reason, but undoubtedly, politics sit atop the historical tank. After nearly two decades of reinventing the NBA discussion, LeBron is now a detriment to the league’s brand.”
Others have suggested the record-low ratings are the result of the league having to go head-to-head with the NFL for the first time in Finals history. Previously, the NBA only had to match up with baseball’s regular season, with Finals games always taking place in June.
Along with the Finals, the first and second rounds of the playoffs experienced massive dropoffs — with first-round viewership declining 27 percent from last season, and 40 percent from 2017-18.
The NBA can indeed make the case that a large part of this is the result of a pandemic shifting the most-celebrated part of the league calendar to the fall. But declining ratings are not limited to the restart on the Disney campus.
Per Sports Business Journal, NBA ratings were dropping considerably across the board (ABC, ESPN and TNT) even before the suspension of play in March.
The Lakers own a 2-1 advantage in the series with Game 4 scheduled for Tuesday night.
