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Magic Johnson: “You saw Mark let Jeanie stay on the Board of Governors. That was smart. One thing that is smart about Jeanie is she was never going to say, ‘Oh, the Lakers are up for sale! Anybody can own them.’ That’s not who she is. She wasn’t going to put it in anybody’s hands. “And I think because of the success of the Dodgers and how he has run the organization, now it’s easy for the fans. We already know him. We’ve seen his work already. We’ve seen what he’s been able to do, led us to a couple of World Series [wins] and going to the World Series four times. That’s success right there. That’s what Laker fans are looking for. “He’s got a track record. This is what Laker fans would want, somebody that they can trust, just like they trusted Dr. Buss. They trusted Jeanie because of her father saying, ‘This is who I want in charge.’ So, this is beautiful for all Laker fans.”
Adam Silver on NBA's 2% viewership decline: It's a victory these days
“Remember the narrative earlier in the season was that the ratings were down and, in fact, they were down,” Adam Silver began. “There was a competitive World Series, a presidential election. There were a bunch of factors I think that led to our ratings being down early on. But in order to end up down 2%, or relatively flat for the season, which is a victory these days, especially with declining television viewership from traditional television, that’s a victory.”
While guesting on “The Chris Rose Rotation,” Lowe momentarily left the frame and returned with the World Series ring he won in 2023 with the Rangers. Lowe then took a swipe at the 25-year-old Lakers guard for being a ringless Dallas star during his time with the Mavericks. “I'm sure your guests come back with surprises because Luka [Doncic] is not sporting one of those,” Lowe said while flaunting his World Series ring. “Luka's not sporting one of those. You know, no knock. He had a fabulous Dallas sports career, but yeah.”
Unfortunately for Riley, he wasn’t able to put three-peat to use for his own team. While the Lakers made it to the 1989 NBA Finals, they lost to the Detroit Pistons. But it didn’t take long for Riley to profit. The Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan, won the NBA Finals three years in a row from 1991 to 1993. Riley, in turn, earned licensing fees and, if negotiated, other types of revenue such as royalties and portions of profits, from sports apparel and merchandise companies that used “three-peat” in ways covered by the trademarks. Riley’s licensing take, ESPN estimated 20 years ago, was about $300,000 from the Bulls’ run. Riley earned additional compensation when the Bulls scored their second three-peat from 1996 to 1998, when the New York Yankees won three straight World Series from 1998 to 2000, and when Riley’s old team, the Lakers, won the NBA title in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Riley has said he’s given most of the three-peat money to charities.
None of the several media executives I contacted is concerned about these numbers after only two weeks. There will be more hand-wringing if both TNT and ESPN are still down double digits at Christmas. As with all ratings stories, people can come up with dozens of psychological reasons for the downturn. This year, execs say the NBA is facing stiffer competition on TV, particularly from the World Series, which averaged 6 million more viewers than last year.
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Coverage of last Friday’s Pacers-Knicks game drew 830,000 viewers on ESPN opposite Game 1 of the World Series, down 47% from 1.58M for Heat-Celtics during Game 1 last year. The Suns-Lakers nightcap drew 1.37M, down 22% from Warriors-Kings last year. Wednesday’s doubleheader fared better against Game 5: Celtics-Pacers drew 1.01M viewers and the Thunder-Spurs nightcap averaged 0.73M, down 2% and 51% from Pelicans-Thunder (1.03M) and Clippers-Lakers (1.48M) last year.
The 2024 World Series might have been short, but the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees still proved they can draw viewers. Especially in Japan. This year's Fall Classic averaged 12.1 million viewers in the home country of Dodgers stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, MLB announced Friday. That's a larger audience than the 11.3 million viewers the 2024 NBA Finals averaged earlier this year, when the Boston Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks.
Any lingering concern about Josh Hart’s preseason — when he scored just two total points and said he felt “lost” on offense — had all but evaporated by the time he stood in the Knicks locker room after their win Friday, tilted his head in between questions to catch glimpses of the World Series game and joked about his past comment. “I was just having fun with y’all, man,” Hart, who scored 20 points against the Pacers in the Knicks’ 123-98 home-opening win. “I knew I was going to be solid. It was preseason. I have a good feel for everybody. I think we’re all really getting into a rhythm offensively and, more importantly, defensively — playing with each other, seeing where everyone likes the ball and those kind of things. I’m good.”
Sean Cunningham: Kevin Huerter talks about his return to action following his offseason shoulder surgery, being ready for opening night on Thursday, being re-inserted into the starting five and his love of the New York Yankees in the World Series. pic.x.com/vQDyPQUSxV
Kevin Huerter talks about his return to action following his offseason shoulder surgery, being ready for opening night on Thursday, being re-inserted into the starting five and his love of the New York Yankees in the World Series. pic.twitter.com/vQDyPQUSxV
— Sean Cunningham (@SeanCunningham) October 23, 2024
It was Oct. 2, 1968. In St. Louis, Bob Gibson and the Cardinals squared off against Denny McLain and the Detroit Tigers in Game 1 of the World Series. In Denver, Broncos coach Lou Saban announced that Marlin Briscoe would start Sunday’s AFL game against the Bengals, making Briscoe the first Black quarterback to start in the Super Bowl era. A preseason basketball game in Flagstaff hardly registered, but it provided a glimpse of what the NBA, then a league of two divisions and 14 teams, was like six decades ago. The night started with the Suns and Lakers sharing a bus from the hotel to the gym. It ended with Chamberlain, riding back to Phoenix with injured Suns forward David Lattin, changing a tire off of Interstate 17, a moment hard to believe and a story seldom shared.
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A DraftKings Sportsbook bettor has been sweating out a parlay that pays $1.7 million for almost a year. The gambler placed a $100 three-team futures parlay in May 2023 on the Texas Rangers to win the World Series (22-1), the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl (6-1) and the Oklahoma City Thunder to win the NBA championship (70-1). The Rangers won the World Series on Nov. 1, defeating the Arizona Diamondbacks in five games. The Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime in the Super Bowl on Feb. 11 at Allegiant Stadium. Now the bettor needs the Thunder to win the NBA title to cash the 17,145-to-1 long shot and collect $1,714,500. The bet would normally pay 11,430-1, but the bettor used a DraftKings promotion for a 50 percent parlay boost.
The three-time NBA champion was not sure, however, about adding stakes to the All-Star Game, like in Major League Baseball, which from 2003 to 2016 awarded World Series home-field advantage on the basis of who won that year’s All-Star Game. “You’ve got guys who play 82 games a year to get home-court advantage, and you’re going to take it away?” Wade said. “That sounds crazy, but you never know until you have to. Maybe the game will be more competitive, but then maybe you walk out of there with three or four injuries in an All-Star Game.”
Bulls-Knicks was the first half of an overlapping, split-network doubleheader. The Heat-Lakers nightcap averaged just 978,000 viewers on ESPN, down 12% from the same matchup on the same night last year — when neither LeBron James nor Anthony Davis played due to injury (1.11M) — and the least-watched game involving James since 2013, when ESPN added Sixers-Heat opposite the men’s Final Four due to Miami’s 27-game winning streak (638K). The full doubleheader averaged 1.30 million, up 23% from the same date last year (1.06M) but the least-watched “NBA Wednesday” on ESPN/ABC since November 1 opposite the World Series (1.27M). The NBA games were the most-watched sporting events of the day. Placing third, a Clemson-Miami men’s college basketball game — elevated to ESPN to fill the vacancy left by Bulls-Knicks — averaged 471,000 viewers. An overlapping Louisville-Virginia game on ESPN2 was close behind at 420,000. Both games soared over the only ESPN matchup in the same window last year, Iowa State-Oklahoma on ESPN2 (266K).
With three college football games thrown into the mix, 2023 marked the first time a single sport registered in the top 100. Basketball just missed the cut, as CBS’ presentation of the San Diego State-UConn title tilt was the year’s 101st most-watched broadcast. The ponies also had a good run, with NBC’s coverage of the race segment of the 149th Kentucky Derby claiming the 106th spot, while the NBA notched its biggest draw for Game 5 of the Heat-Nuggets Finals (No. 120). The concluding round of the 87th Masters Tournament landed at No. 131, while Game 5 of the World Series earned bragging rights as the year’s 140th most-watched televised event.
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