ABC Scales Back NBA Playoff Coverage

[SabresRule]

Here's something interesting.

In the 12 seasons that the NBA was on NBC- the Knicks made the playoffs 11 times.

In the 8 seasons that the NBA has been on ABC- the Knicks made the playoffs once (2004).

Coincidence?

 

[DodgerKing]

either the 2nd or 3rd most popular US sport

More like 4th.

NFL, MLB, and NASCAR (if one wants to consider car racing a sport) are all ahead of the NBA.

This is however a very difficult thing to measure since the variables are very different in all of them.

You cannot do total attendance when one sport plays 81 home games, another plays 40, and another plays 8
You cannot do average or total attendance per game because one sport has arenas that hold 20,000 to stadiums that hold 40,000 to 50,000 to stadiums that hold 60,000 to 90,000
You cannot do total viewership combined because some sports have much more games televised
You cannot accurately compare viewership per game when most sports are regionally covered and play pretty much everyday (so each game is not as important) and another sport plays 1 day a week and is nationally televised (therefor more people at once make a special day to view on that one day)

The best thing to go by is playoff ratings since they all pretty much have national coverage. This is where we get:

1. NFL
2. NASCAR
3. MLB
4. NBA
5. NHL

Football will always have the advantage because of the fact that that each team plays only 16 games (thus each game is more important), plays one day a week (so all fans get together at one time to watch or attend instead of getting together any day they choose), and their playoffs are one game each (one game in which everyone can get together at one time).

Throw in college playoffs and pretty much all of them move down (except NFL).

 

[Lkr]

More like 4th.

NFL, MLB, and NASCAR (if one wants to consider car racing a sport) are all ahead of the NBA.

i really don't think nascar has as large of a following. when you look at the entire population, i don't think many minors or from areas other than the south are large nascar fans. in big cities, basketball is huge(but you know this in LA )

 

[DodgerKing]

i really don't think nascar has as large of a following. when you look at the entire population, i don't think many minors or from areas other than the south are large nascar fans. in big cities, basketball is huge(but you know this in LA )

I live in the Inland Empire, next to two major NASCAR tracks (Riverside and Irwindale). It is big. People camp out the entire weekend with over 100k in attendance. Plus their TV ratings beat all but the NFL.

I however do not consider NASCAR a sport.

Yes, in LA, the Lakers are the trendy team, followed by USC Football, and then the Dodgers. The Dodgers actually have higher TV ratings and draw many more fans (of course they hold more than twice as many seats and play more than twice as many games), they are not as hip and cool as the Lakers.

 

[Lkr]

I live in the Inland Empire, next to two major NASCAR tracks (Riverside and Irwindale). It is big. People camp out the entire weekend with over 100k in attendance. Plus their TV ratings beat all but the NFL.

I however do not consider NASCAR a sport.

Yes, in LA, the Lakers are the trendy team, followed by USC Football, and then the Dodgers. The Dodgers actually have higher TV ratings and draw many more fans (of course they hold more than twice as many seats and play more than twice as many games), they are not as hip and cool as the Lakers.

I don't think the Lakers have anything to do with hip or cool, I think more people born in larger cities become fans of basketball. I grew up in the LA area, and I became a big fan of basketball because of the culture in the area. I think what ends up being your favorite sport is due to the area of the nation you were brought up in. If I was raised in the north, I would probably like hockey. I don't know, its kinda weird to discuss

 

[DodgerKing]

I don't think the Lakers have anything to do with hip or cool, I think more people born in larger cities become fans of basketball. I grew up in the LA area, and I became a big fan of basketball because of the culture in the area. I think what ends up being your favorite sport is due to the area of the nation you were brought up in. If I was raised in the north, I would probably like hockey. I don't know, its kinda weird to discuss

Dont disagree with most of this. Let me add, the Lakers became more popular because of Kobe. It is that aspect that is hip

 

[Lkr]

Dont disagree with most of this. Let me add, the Lakers became more popular because of Kobe. It is that aspect that is hip

True. Of course, all successful teams get people that hop on the bandwagon.

 

[tjguitar]

I stopped following the Lakers when Magic retired. No interest in the current Lakers, I watch more Clippers games but don't really care about them either.

 

[jrbdmb]

Back to the OP, it seems like ABC is disinterested in sports. Lost the NFL, losing NASCAR, no MLB / NHL, minimizing NBA, minimal NCAA basketball. I'm not sure why they stick with NCAA football when they've ditched everything else, but even their they continue to stick with the insane "ESPN on ABC" moniker.

Hopefully in the next contract the NBA will give the network broadcast rights to someone who cares about the game. I'm no big NBA fan, but I would enjoy watching playoff games on CBS and NBC. I've *never* watched an NBA playoff game on ABC.

 

[TMC1982]

Back to the OP, it seems like ABC is disinterested in sports. Lost the NFL, losing NASCAR, no MLB / NHL, minimizing NBA, minimal NCAA basketball. I'm not sure why they stick with NCAA football when they've ditched everything else, but even their they continue to stick with the insane "ESPN on ABC" moniker.

Hopefully in the next contract the NBA will give the network broadcast rights to someone who cares about the game. I'm no big NBA fan, but I would enjoy watching playoff games on CBS and NBC. I've *never* watched an NBA playoff game on ABC.

This may sound a bit corny, but I wonder what Roone Arledge (if he we're still with us) would think of what has happened to ABC Sports in the past decade? I also wonder what Al Michaels thinks about his former employer turning into a weak ESPN overrun outlet? I know that Keith Jackson (when the whole "ESPN on ABC" deal) said that he sense that ESPN completely taking over was eventually going to happen. He said that the moment that Cap-Cities took over ABC in 1985, the writing was on the wall. This is because, Cap-Cities wouldn't put a lot of money into making ABC Sports competitive. It wasn't until Disney came into the picture in 1996, that ESPN was slowly but surely being seeped into ABC Sports. Dennis Swanson, who succeeded Roone Arledge as head of ABC Sports pushed hard to keep the Olympics on ABC (the last time that ABC aired a Summer Olympics was in 1984 and the last time that they aired a Winter Olympics was in 1988), but the powers that be at Cap-Cities wouldn't support him.

 

[televisionarchives]

This may sound a bit corny, but I wonder what Roone Arledge (if he we're still with us) would think of what has happened to ABC Sports in the past decade? I also wonder what Al Michaels thinks about his former employer turning into a weak ESPN overrun outlet? I know that Keith Jackson (when the whole "ESPN on ABC" deal) said that he sense that ESPN completely taking over was eventually going to happen. He said that the moment that Cap-Cities took over ABC in 1985, the writing was on the wall. This is because, Cap-Cities wouldn't put a lot of money into making ABC Sports competitive. It wasn't until Disney came into the picture in 1996, that ESPN was slowly but surely being seeped into ABC Sports. Dennis Swanson, who succeeded Roone Arledge as head of ABC Sports pushed hard to keep the Olympics on ABC (the last time that ABC aired a Summer Olympics was in 1984 and the last time that they aired a Winter Olympics was in 1988), but the powers that be at Cap-Cities wouldn't support him.

Roone passed away in 2002. I worked with his crew on an ABC Wide World of Sports broadcast years ago. I hated when they ended Wide World .

 

[Paul Wozniak]

I think because Paul lumped them together, we're confusing contenders with exciting players.

I like your list of exciting players (and I would add some Mavericks and Suns to the list), but those teams are not all contenders.

For contenders you definitely have Cleveland, LA, Boston, Orlando, Denver and San Antonio. Teams that can knock off one of these teams but probably not win it all are Atlanta, Dallas, Portland and Phoenix.

While it will quite possibly come down to Cleveland/LA, it's not as cut and dried as Paul said.


Sandra

Actually it was two different statements, which I did a bad job of separating. There are only 3 players I would pay to watch, or even bother to turn the TV on for; Kobe, LeBron and Wade. As for contenders, well anybody is one ill-timed injury away from becoming a non-contender (Kobe and Lebron). Boston and San Antonio will not get to the finals simply because they have gotten old. (Boston may want to think about trading Allen, while they can still get value.) Orlando isn't going anywhere with their chemistry, and Denver just doesn't look like a championship team to me. The rest are just as you called them Sandra.

The way I see it right now is that it's the Lakers championship to lose, Shaq doesn't increase Cleveland's chances this season.
I'm sorry but the NBA is just boring my socks off this year.

 

[HD MM]

Actually it was two different statements, which I did a bad job of separating. There are only 3 players I would pay to watch, or even bother to turn the TV on for; Kobe, LeBron and Wade. As for contenders, well anybody is one ill-timed injury away from becoming a non-contender (Kobe and Lebron). Boston and San Antonio will not get to the finals simply because they have gotten old. (Boston may want to think about trading Allen, while they can still get value.) Orlando isn't going anywhere with their chemistry, and Denver just doesn't look like a championship team to me. The rest are just as you called them Sandra.

The way I see it right now is that it's the Lakers championship to lose, Shaq doesn't increase Cleveland's chances this season.
I'm sorry but the NBA is just boring my socks off this year.

You haven't been paying as close attention this year then.

It's staggering how much our inside numbers, both on offense and defense have improved this year.

If Cleveland doesn't win, I will be greatly disappointed.

 

[SabresRule]

NBC and CBS did a better job at how to show the NBA on a nationally televised basis- they showed more games, did multiple games every Saturday/Sunday when they could (I yearn for the days of the tripleheader), and were not afraid to show playoff games before the Finals in primetime.

It's a shame that NBC lost the rights to the NBA before the likes of LeBron and D-Wade joined the league.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

You haven't been paying as close attention this year then.

It's staggering how much our inside numbers, both on offense and defense have improved this year.

If Cleveland doesn't win, I will be greatly disappointed.

That's what I'm saying.

 

[damjr]

I think that a lot of it has to do with Disney (the owners of ABC and ESPN) having the current philosophy that the more marquee/major events go to cable, the more they can charge for subscription fees (to go along with the ad revenue). This is part of the reason why Monday Night Football moved from ABC to ESPN (even though under the current contract, ESPN doesn't get any playoff broadcasts unlike in the last contract with ABC). Also, ABC seems to be looking at a lot of big time sports as toxic right now (besides the risk of taking on a loss leader) because they see shows like Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy to be more valuable commodities. David Stern also believes that the less amount of games air on ABC will equal in the games being seen as a bigger deal (due to the demand).

:up:up DING DING DING......WE HAVE A WINNER.
You hit it right on the head here.

 

[TMC1982]

NBC and CBS did a better job at how to show the NBA on a nationally televised basis- they showed more games, did multiple games every Saturday/Sunday when they could (I yearn for the days of the tripleheader), and were not afraid to show playoff games before the Finals in primetime.

It's a shame that NBC lost the rights to the NBA before the likes of LeBron and D-Wade joined the league.

If it were up to me, NBC and CBS (with TNT getting the cable rights) would be the co-major broadcasters of the NBA. NBC and CBS would alternate between who got the rights of the All-Star Game and NBA Finals (with TNT airing a bulk of the action). I personally prefer TNT's current NBA coverage over ABC/ESPN's by a mile. They seem to treat the idea of having the NBA as a big deal. ABC on the other hand, seems to treat the NBA as a weekend/summer time (when the Finals start) programming filler.

 

[HD MM]

That's what I'm saying.

No need to be sad Paully! Turn that frown upside down!

 

[Paul Wozniak]

Well good luck to you guys anyhow, it's been a long time since there's been any joy in Cleveland. Is Amare Stoudemire coming to Cleveland?

 

[HD MM]

Well good luck to you guys anyhow, it's been a long time since there's been any joy in Cleveland. Is Amare Stoudemire coming to Cleveland?

That's the million dollar question. Everyone in Cleveland is sitting on pins and needles. I hope we find out sooner than later. The deadline is this Thursday.