NBA Finals scores down from pre-pandemic numbers

NBA officials are happy that Nielsen’s ratings are up for these NBA Finals between the Suns and Bucks during last year’s fanless Disney World bubble disaster.

But the league still has a long way to go to match the pre-pandemic assessment numbers.

On Tuesday, ESPN / ABC released a statement that said viewership increased 33% from last year’s finals between the Lakers and Heat in the first three games, averaging 9 million viewers.

But that was only part of the story. Compared to the 2019 NBA Finals between the Raptors and the Warriors, the numbers are suffering.

According to Nielsen, the number of viewers in the first three games of 2021 compared to 2019 is down 4.63 million on average, or 34%.

The amazing part is in 2019 there was no local market for one of the clubs, the Raptors. Nielsen odds do not count Canada. Yet the Nielsen 2019 figure beats the current figures.

The total number of viewers over three games in 2019 was 40.8 million, up from 26.95 million this year.

One factor is that Milwaukee and Phoenix are small market clubs. Commissioner Adam Silver could have used one of the Los Angeles teams (Clippers or Lakers) to the west and the Brooklyn Nets Dream Team or Philadelphia to the east to improve Nielsen’s odds.

In 2020, part of the cause of the worst final marks in history was due to the pandemic. It took place at a completely different time in the sporting calendar – in October – and faced the NFL regular season and MLB playoffs.

This is not the case this year, although the schedule is still shifted due to the pandemic schedule. Finals normally end at the end of June.

Finals aren’t exactly lacking in star power but don’t contain the usual icons from past finals (LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard).

Giannis Antetokounmpo from Greece, Khris Middleton, Devin Booker and Chris Paul are the stars of these finals.

The odds in the Milwaukee and Phoenix markets, however, are spectacular. Game 3 generated a 27.2 rating in the Milwaukee Marketplace, making it the highest rated NBA game on the market since 2001. The show received a 23.1 rating in the Phoenix Marketplace.

Game 4 is Wednesday night on ABC at 9 p.m. ET. The Suns lead the series 2-1.