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Yes, I am saying it once again this year, too. Based on the results of Round 1, the NBA wanted its flagship cities and the league’s top stars to advance into the second round of the 2023 playoffs.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will, but let’s establish the facts first.
NBA First Round Playoff Results:
East #1 Milwaukee Bucks lost to #8 seed Miami Heat – 4 games to 1
East #2 Boston Celtics defeated #7 seed Atlanta Hawks – 4 games to 2
East #3 Philadelphia 76ers swept #6 Brooklyn Nets – 4 games to 0
East #4 Cleveland Cavaliers lost to #5 seed New York Knicks – 4 games to 1
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West #1 Denver Nuggets beat #8 seed Minnesota Timberwolves – 4 games to 1
West #2 Memphis Grizzlies lost to #7 seed Los Angeles Lakers – 4 games to 2
West #3 Sacramento Kings lost to #6 seed Golden State Warriors – 4 games to 3
West #4 Phoenix Suns defeated #5 seed Los Angeles Clippers – 4 games to 1
Now, let’s now review the results based on each city’s TV market size:
Miami (#18 TV market) defeated Milwaukee (#37)
Boston (#10 TV market) over Atlanta (#7)
Philly (#4 TV market) beat Brooklyn (#1 market)
NY Knicks (#1 TV market) over Cleveland (#19)
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Denver (#16 TV market) defeated Minneapolis (#14)
Los Angeles Lakers (#2 TV market) beat Memphis (#51)
Golden State (#6 TV market in San Francisco) over Sacramento (#20)
Phoenix (#11 TV market) beat Los Angeles Clippers (#2 market)
In the eight NBA first-round playoff series, the teams in the larger television markets won only half of the series.
HOWEVER…
The nation’s two largest television markets (New York and Los Angeles) still have their most popular NBA team advancing into Round 2 while the less popular franchise is heading to vacation.
The New York Knicks are the Big Apple’s fan favorite.
The same can be said in Los Angeles as LeBron James and the Lakers advanced while the injured Clippers went home.
Let’s review the television markets which remain as the NBA’s second round of playoffs begin.
There are teams playing in New York (#1), Los Angeles (#2), Philadelphia (#4), San Francisco (#6), Boston (#10), Phoenix (#11), Denver (#16) and Miami (#18). For those keeping score, the TV markets eliminated in Round 1 were #7 Atlanta, #14 Minneapolis, #19 Cleveland, #20 Sacramento, #37 Milwaukee, and #51 Memphis.
Wait! If the NBA first round of playoffs were rigged, then why didn’t the Atlanta Hawks (#7) defeat the #10 Boston Celtics and the #14 Minnesota Timberwolves prevail over the #16 Denver Nuggets?
The Celtics are one of the NBA’s most successful franchises and feature a possible NBA MVP candidate in forward Jason Tatum. The Hawks had a talented team but don’t have a significant national following.
Love them or hate them, the Boston Celtics are the NBA’s most popular team nearly every year.
So that leaves one final question.
Why would the NBA allow Denver (#16 TV market) to take down the #14 market in Minneapolis? Easy! The Nuggets have the NBA’s current two-time MVP in versatile center Nikola Jokic. The Minnesota Timberwolves do not feature any stars of that caliber.
The NBA is and always has been a star-driven league. In a game where only five athletes are on the court at one time, basketball affords the most talented individual on a team to become a focal point for NBA fans.
What about Memphis star Ja Morant? He is one of the top players in the NBA this year.
Indeed! Ja Morant was the biggest NBA star whose team was sent home in the first round of the playoffs.
Ja Morant was also the same player suspended for eight games without pay in March for “conduct detrimental to the league.” Ja Morant was caught on camera brandishing a handgun in a nightclub located just outside of Denver.
It is safe to assume that the NBA may not desire to showcase a young star that brought several days of negative headlines to the league. Ja Morant also plays basketball in one of the smallest TV markets in Memphis.
So, enjoy your summer vacation, Grizzlies! You didn’t fit the script for the 2023 NBA playoffs.
Did I mention that the NBA’s television contract is coming up for renewal soon?
With a nine year contract which began in 2016, the National Basketball Association’s current TV deal called for $24 billion in exclusive broadcast rights paid by partners ABC/ESPN and Turner’s TNT cable channel. The current agreement remains in effect through the 2024-2025 NBA season.
Traditionally, the NBA and other major sports leagues will negotiate their new media deals at least one year ahead of time. That would make this summer’s NBA playoffs a perfect time to showcase the league and help give a bump to its slowly sagging ratings.
Television ratings for the NBA’s regular season have been generally flat since the early 2000’s. The basketball league’s snooze-worthy 82-game regular season schedule (October through early April) rarely pulls more than two million viewers on its national broadcast schedule.
By comparison, any regular season football game in the NFL is likely to fetch at least 17 million television viewers. The NFL draws about ten times the average number of viewers of an NBA game. Of course, the NFL only plays 17 regular season games compared to the NBA’s 82.
That is why so many media outlets are willing to pay handsomely in order to capture a piece of the NFL’s huge television viewership.
Though the NBA used to have a monopoly on Christmas Day sports fans with an all-day buffet of games, the NFL recently started to schedule games on the same day. The NBA simply cannot compete head-to-head against an NFL regular season game.
That means that the NBA languishes in relative obscurity until its excessive 2-month playoff season which begins in April and stretches through mid-June.
The executive suite of the NBA would love to sweeten its upcoming TV contract negotiations with a big jump in ratings during the playoffs this spring.
And that’s why we will be seeing all of the NBA’s biggest stars playing in the biggest television markets for Round 2 of the playoffs beginning this week.
In the East, it will be Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Jalen Brown going up against Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and James Harden. In the other East semifinal, it is Miami’s underappreciated Jimmy Butler taking on Julius Randle and the red-hot New York Knicks.
In the West semifinals, the match-up of Golden State’s Steph Curry and Klay Thompson goes up against the Los Angeles Lakers dynamic duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Denver’s two-time league MVP Nikola Jokic will match talents with the Phoenix Suns duo of Devin Booker and Kevin Durant.
You couldn’t have planned these second round match-ups any better if you were trying to achieve the maximum possible television audience.
The NBA front office is thrilled. So are ESPN and TNT! The NBA’s second round match-ups will likely deliver the highest television ratings since the current nine-year television contract began in 2016.
How convenient!
A significant increase in television ratings this year – beginning right now – will mean billions of dollars in additional television revenue in the league’s upcoming TV contract negotiations. The NBA splits the media revenues almost 50/50 with the players.
Expect to see several Game 7 match-ups during the coming six weeks as the NBA playoffs vie to take center stage for your sports television viewing.
These second round match-ups are simply ideal.
It makes me wonder if the NBA may have received a little help from the WWE in developing this year’s playoff script.