While the NBA finalizes deals to more than double its media rights fees, Mike Francesa predicts the Finals are destined to be a TV ratings disaster.
After a lackluster Western and Eastern Conference Finals, NBA fans now have to wait a week for another basketball game. The NBA Finals between the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics are scheduled to tip off Thursday, June 6, a lull Francesa ripped on the latest episode of his podcast.
“The NBA Finals will begin in a week, which is a disaster for the NBA,” Francesa said. “I know they can’t do anything about it, I know they want to schedule it. They don’t know what city these things are going to be played in, it’s not like the Super Bowl. I understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, but I think it really hurts their product and it really hurts the marginal fan.”
In recent years, the NBA moved away from having a flexible Finals schedule. The league opts for a fixed start date, believing it appeases the fans, teams, TV partners, and the more than 1,000 media members they anticipate traveling from around the world to cover the Finals.
But that fixed date allows for both Conference Finals to go seven games. When those series combine for a total of nine games, it creates a long layoff before the NBA Finals. Just as the weather is starting to get nice, the NBA is pulling fans from their routine of watching playoff basketball, which seems detrimental to their ratings.
“You got nothing out of the Conference Finals,” Francesa said. “You got no build-up, no drama going toward the Finals…You’re now having no basketball on for a week. That rhythm you’ve gotten into, even if you’re a marginal fan, of there being basketball every night in the playoffs – Now there’s not any basketball for seven days…You had no drama in the Conference Finals and you have a week off! This thing is gonna get lost. These ratings for the NBA Finals are going to be terrible. If I were in the NBA office I’d be jumping up and down saying, ‘This is the worst thing that could have possibly happened to us is to have a week off right now.’ We are going into these Finals with no momentum. None.”
On the contrary, Francesa noted how the NHL Playoffs have benefited from close games and long series, building momentum as they move toward the Stanley Cup Finals.
“Let’s be honest, if you’re fair as either a television person or a sports person, the NHL Playoffs completely blow the NBA Playoffs away,” Francesa said. “The product is so much more exciting, it’s ridiculous, it’s not even close.”
Francesa proceeded to say hockey will never replace basketball in the United States, but in terms of their respective products in the playoffs, the NHL is far superior to the NBA. It’s a sentiment Charles Barkley has echoed several times. And with Barkley seemingly headed towards free agency after next season, maybe another lackluster NBA Playoffs will have him wanting to find a job talking hockey instead of basketball.