I don’t care if you believe this the reason the NBA is looking at rule changes. I really don’t. My take is that this is the reason. If you differ, that’s you and I’m not going to debate that because there’s nothing factual to prove either stance yet.
My point was that it’s a valid hypothesis based on how television broadcast networks, advertisers and the leagues affect one another. The NFL has seen huge growth, at least in part due to rule changes making the game more pass friendly, encouraging teams to air it out more than grinding games out like the Ray Lewis era Ravens. Networks were begging for weekly Thursday Night games for a while because the advertising opportunities were ridiculous.
He was pretty under appreciated by fans during the Big 3 era imo. He’s only gonna be remembered for grabbing the rebound for Ray’s 3-pointer and the champagne incident.
On a different note, KD doesn’t seem to realize the pass he’s been given by fans and the media. Everyone is so focused on Lebron only having 2 titles, that everyone overlooks that KD has none. So I’m wondering what happens if he goes to GS. The pressure Lebron had was that he was going to have to be the reason they won chips and he was for the most part. I don’t see KD being THE reason GS wins titles if he’s there. They’re already the best team in the league by a wide margin.
NBA just made a record $5.2 billion last season. New TV deal will push that figure to $6.8 billion at least.
As for ratings game 7 in last years Rockets-Clippers series was the highest rated first or second round game since 2012. Clippers and Rockets have sold out every home game since they got Paul and Harden. Average league attendance is up from last year.
Cavs-Warriors finals was the highest rated finals for ABC since they began airing them in 2003. Cavs-Warriors Christmas day rematch broke ratings records in local markets and Warriors-Spurs was the highest watched NBA TV game.
TV ratings don’t even account for the number of people who stream and watch games online.
Forbes has the average team’s value at $1.25 billion. The Knicks highest at $3 billion while Clippers, Rockets and Pistons are $2, $1.5 and $0.850 billion.
If hack-a-strategy is affecting money and ratings is hasn’t shown in the numbers.
Forgot to add the one time when a team did lose sponsors it was the Clippers. Not because DJ shoots 40% FTs but when Sterling’s racist comments were made public.
But but but what if abc calls up Adam Silver upset that game 52 suffered a .1 hit to the ratings due to hack-a? How will they ever explain that to advertisers? They may lose $3k per commercial!
(Ignoring how commercial get priced, how ratings work, how commercial deals are structured, how business relationships work…)
Whiteside has now made 20 of his last 31 free throws. If Hubie Brown knew how much better of a free throw shooter he’s become since changing his free throw release, maybe they wouldn’t have foolishly clowned it during the game. But whatev.
It works for him because he has an actual midrange shot. Dwight, Jordan, and Drummond don’t, so they’re screwed.
I think the biggest thing to hurt ratings last playoffs were small market teams (atl, bucks) and mid week games. The houston/clips hack off did better than ecf cavs/hawks series.
“Hey mr. Silver… Our ratings aren’t doing so great… Can you change the rules so that the hawks aren’t in the playoffs anymore? We might lose $3k per commercial! Thanks.”
