With apologies to Simon & Garfunkel.
Last Thursday night's NBA finals generated 13.38 million viewers according to Nielsen. This is much better than last year (when game one drew 9.21 million, so Kobe and KG at least aren't quite as lonely as Lebron James and Tim Duncan) but a far cry from the Michael Jordan era when the NBA finals he participated in routinely averaged over 25 million viewers, almost twice as many as watched on Thursday night.
While I think it's a lock I'm going to lose the lunch bet to Bill Gorman should the series between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics extend to six games (Bill bet the finals would average over 15 million viewers, I took the under), it's still a far cry from the glory days. So we'll let you weigh in too, not just for tonight's game, but for the whole series. How many people do you think this year's finals will average. So far, it's averaging 13.38 million. Please note: you can ignore the preliminary numbers we'll receive for the primetime portion of the game (9p-11p) because they're awful for live events. Last Thursday's game was off by over 3 million viewers in the preliminary results.
[poll id=5]
309 votes and no comment?come on people.i take 15–17million.it will get a better rating today.
gsilver, I guess people like voting in polls better than commenting! I think your pick is probably right though, at least if the series goes more than 5 games and it is the “wisdom of the crowds” pick!
Actually, we probably did have Yahoo! Sports… but… still.
Catone,
There was Yahoo Sports *and* if you can believe it, TiVo (though only about 12 of us) in 1998! I respectfully disagree somewhat about star power. Tiger Woods *still* makes a huge difference in ratings for Golf in 2008. The drop off in ratings if TW isn't in the tournament (or even in the running the final day) is immense.
Fragmentation is an issue in the aggregate, but if it mattered that much the February 2008 Super Bowl wouldn't have had record TV viewers.
Certainly a solid point — I know I won't be as interested in the US Open this year if Tiger's not in the hunt on Sunday.
That said, I'm not sure if you can compare the Super Bowl (a one-off event) so well with the NBA Finals (dragged out over 2 weeks).
Agree that the Super Bowl isn't a direct (or “fair”) comparison. But I have trouble attributing 100% better ratings 10 years ago for the NBA finals completely to fragmentation. Stars definitely draw in the more casual viewer. Of course I haven't seen last night's ratings yet and if Lakers can win 2 or 3 games in LA, the gap between 1998 will surely narrow at least a bit.
You can't really say it's all “Kobe and KG vs. MJ” … every decade we're inundated with more and more entertainment options. We didn't have Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc. in the mid-90s when Jordan was doing his thing. We also didn't have Tivo, Yahoo! Sports, trillions of blogs, and 42 Sportscenter broadcasts every night. The same way a hit sitcom these days will never score viewer numbers like MASH, and no movie will ever put together a box office run like Titanic, the 25 million viewers for the NBA finals isn't gonna happen — unless maybe Jesus straps on his sandals and comes out of retirement.
This is more a story about viewer fragmentation than star quality.
Actually, we probably did have Yahoo! Sports… but… still.
Catone,
There was Yahoo Sports *and* if you can believe it, TiVo (though only about 12 of us) in 1998! I respectfully disagree somewhat about star power. Tiger Woods *still* makes a huge difference in ratings for Golf in 2008. The drop off in ratings if TW isn't in the tournament (or even in the running the final day) is immense.
Fragmentation is an issue in the aggregate, but if it mattered that much the February 2008 Super Bowl wouldn't have had record TV viewers.
Certainly a solid point — I know I won't be as interested in the US Open this year if Tiger's not in the hunt on Sunday.
That said, I'm not sure if you can compare the Super Bowl (a one-off event) so well with the NBA Finals (dragged out over 2 weeks).
Agree that the Super Bowl isn't a direct (or “fair”) comparison. But I have trouble attributing 100% better ratings 10 years ago for the NBA finals completely to fragmentation. Stars definitely draw in the more casual viewer. Of course I haven't seen last night's ratings yet and if Lakers can win 2 or 3 games in LA, the gap between 1998 will surely narrow at least a bit.