In early December, an NBA video circulating online quickly went viral. The clip, a two-minute stretch of the fourth quarter of a nationally televised game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns, was basketball at its worst: nine possessions, nine threes, zero shots made. Why don’t you watch the NBA anymore? read one caption. THIS is why.
Fans are watching, of course. The league’s Christmas Day slate averaged 5.25 million viewers. For the Lakers’ win over the Golden State Warriors, a renewal of a long-standing rivalry between LeBron James and Stephen Curry, the number was nearly eight million. A Jan. 8 showdown between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers, not exactly traditional basketball hotbeds, averaged 1.87 million viewers, up 20% from a comparable window last season. And the NBA did just close a new media rights deal that will bring in $76 billion over the next 11 seasons.
