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one. While the NFL is only seeing a slight drop in viewership, the NBA has seen a huge disconnect from viewers. The question is, how alarmed should the league be by this development?
Here are the numbers for the first three games of the Finals between the Heat and Lakers.
Game 1: 7.4 million viewers
Game 2: 6.1 million viewers
Game 3: 5.9 million viewers
Those numbers for Game 2 and 3 are all-time lows for the NBA Finals.
Now for perspective.
The second game took place on a Friday night. The NBA never plays a Finals game on Friday nights because the audience on Friday is terrible.
Game 3 was held Sunday night going head-to-head with the NFL.
That explains the 3 million viewers drop from Game 1 to Game 3.
The real problem is that the first game drew seven million viewers, while last year’s Finals between the Warriors and Raptors averaged 15.1 million viewers.
Obviously, scheduling is a big problem. The NBA Finals take center stage in June, when they have to compete only with the NHL and regular-season baseball. Now the Finals compete with the NFL, postseason baseball and college football.
As with the NFL, the number of cable cuts and cable news that are hurting television networks cannot be discounted. Cable news ratings are up 37% from the previous year. The network’s prime-time ratings fell 47%.
Even with all of these factors, the league has to be concerned that the Finals won’t have any audience juice, especially with the Lakers and LeBron James there.
You don’t need me to tell you that this was far from a traditional season, and the games are played differently on TV with no fans in the building and the crazy atmosphere of an NBA crowd.
You could have argued that with this unusual season, the NBA could throw this year’s ratings out the window and just focus on next season, but the viewership numbers for the last two games are so bad they have leagues to worry about. .
two. Aaron Rodgers gave us the worst best flex you’ve ever seen last night.
3. As someone who left fantasy football three years ago, in one of the best decisions of my life, I especially enjoyed this tweet from injured Packers wide receiver Márquez Valdés-Scantling.
4. As always, this week’s Bad Beats are worth your time.
5. If you love weird stats, here’s a detail on Alex Bregman.
6. Recent guests at the SI Media Podcast They include Al Michaels last week, Dan Patrick two weeks ago and Kevin Harlan three weeks ago. If you missed any of the episodes, catch up today and subscribe to the pod.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play.
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: The great Nickelodeon show of the 80s, Double challenge, debuted on this date in 1986. Did you know that Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan appeared on the show once?
8. SPORTS VIDEO OF THE DAYHere is the week 4 edition of Angry Runs.
Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina at Apple, Spotify or Stapler. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter Y Instagram.
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