Rumors

ClutchPoints: Alonzo Mourning is in the house for the Stanley Cup Final 🔥 (via @FlaPanthers) pic.twitter.com/hHi16gHC0w

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O’Neal said it only makes sense to bring an NBA team to Las Vegas, which in the past six years has become the home of the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights, the current Stanley Cup champions; the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, the current WNBA champions; and the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders, who do an awesome job hosting the visiting team's fans.

themessenger.com

Back in the States, where soccer is still not exactly what anyone would call a matter of life and death, the TV audience was anything but insignificant. Not only did the Italy-England match deliver more viewers than each game of NBC Sports’ coverage of the Stanley Cup Final, but it also handily out-delivered nearly every game of the 2020-21 NBA season. Per Nielsen, only the Christmas Day Mavs-Lakers broadcast, two playoff outings and the three NBA Finals games have put up bigger numbers than Sunday’s overseas soccer showdown. For the sake of context, the two conference semifinals telecasts (Bucks-Nets, Hawks-Sixers) were both Game 7s.

Sportico

Albert also called eight Super Bowls and eight Stanley Cup Finals. "My 55 years of broadcasting the NBA has just flown by and I've been fortunate to work with so many wonderful and talented people," Albert said. "Now, I'll have the opportunity to hone my gardening skills and work on my ballroom dancing."

ESPN

The first round of the draft averaged 2.65 million — ESPN’s top NBA audience in the month of November since 2018 — and ranked second for the night in adults 18-49 and 18-34 behind “The Masked Singer” on FOX. The steep decline and multi-year low for the NBA Draft is in keeping with the broader trend facing the sports media industry. The NBA Finals, World Series, Stanley Cup Final, final rounds of the Masters and U.S. Open — and more — have hit historic lows since the wave of cancellations and postponements in March.

Sports Media Watch

Like the playoffs as a whole, the steep drop for the Finals is in line with the industry-wide trend. Even after losing half of its year-ago audience, the Finals held up better than the Stanley Cup Final (-61%) or the final round of golf’s U.S. Open (-56%), which were similarly shifted from June to late summer.

Sports Media Watch

But the MLB playoffs (down 39 percent), the NFL (down 14 percent), the NHL playoffs (down 25 percent) and the Stanley Cup Finals (down 61 percent) are all experiencing ratings drops. These dips are seemingly overlooked because it doesn’t fit the narrative that a league predominantly composed of Black men raising concerns over the justice system and condemning systemic racism is bad for business.

Yahoo! Sports

If low by conference final standards, the games held up well by most others. Saturday’s clinching Nuggets-Lakers Game 5 was the weekend’s highest rated and most-watched non-NFL sporting event with a 2.4 and 4.79 million viewers on TNT, easily winning a crowded head-to-head against college football (Florida State-Miami: 1.6, 2.95M; Alabama-Missouri: 1.15, 2.09M) and Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final (1.5, 2.71M).

Sports Media Watch

Two NBA players specifically pointed to the Knights’ success as an indication that Las Vegas would support a basketball team. The Knights made the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season and drew crowds beyond capacity for most games. “Even just from adding an NHL team, they’re doing great things,” reigning NBA MVP James Harden of the Houston Rockets said. “It’s built for it. Obviously, the money is there, but I think the fan support is there as well. We saw that in hockey.”

reviewjournal.com

With the Stanley Cup Final starting tonight, he’s rooting for the Predators because their franchise has never won. He’s also a fan of Nashville defenseman P.K. Subban. “It’s tough because one of my best friends is (Pittsburgh assistant coach) Rick Tocchet,” Barkley said. He said his NBA buddies have started paying more attention to the NHL because of Seth Jones. He's the son of former NBA player and long-time coach Popeye Jones.

USA Today Sports

The massacre at an Orlando nightclub Sunday shook the country, and professional sports teams have been vocal in their support for the victims. The NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals held a moment of silence prior to their first games after the tragedy, and many teams have spoken up on social media. The Miami Heat tweeted out their support and prayers for the city of Orlando, then went an extra step by changing their logo as a tribute to the LGBT community.

Palm Beach Post