Obviously, a lot of people around the country think David Stern, Russ Granik and co., give a crap about the ratings. Who cares if the average joe didn't enjoy the NBA Finals?? Does anyone realize how many people outside the US are watching the NBA today??? The NBA is striving to become a worldwide league, and theyre doing it. Counting worldwide viewers, there are so many more people watching the league than when Jordan at his peak, so don't get your panties in a bunch. It doesn't matter if some schmoe in Los Angeles who doesn't understand basketball is gonna wait for Shaq and Kobe to be back in the Finals. Can anyone believe last year's Finals got better ratings than this years?? Last year's series was a sweep. I didn't watch one minute of LA- NJ, because I knew it wouldn't be close. Atleast there was a bit of competitiveness to this year's Finals...
You have a point if it reflects in a increase of merchanding and advertising revenue. I don't think that is the case though. Last year if I read correctly, every nba player had to return 10% back to the league since it failed to hit certain revenue figures. Also if I remember correctly, the salary cap actually fell back a couple of million due to decreasing revenue.
maybe I'm in over my head on this one, it just seems that if we have millions and millions of fans watching in numerous other countries, its gonna add up eventually...
