New NBA Season a Good Bet . . . On TV

The NBA season got off to an interesting start

It’s hard to figure out what to talk about first: big ratings for exciting games or a major gambling scandal.

There was a lot of NBA news last week. Instead of on the court, it come from the Justice Department. As you must know by now, one player was suspended for passing information to gamblers and a coach was put on leave for playing poker with the mob. 

It might be flippant to say gambling scandals happen–they do. But I don’t think people will stop watching sports on TV.

Exhibit A: 

Tuesday’s NBA opening night on NBC was the highest rated tip-off in nearly 20 years with an average of 5.6 million people tuning in. (The record tipoff featured LeBron James’ first game with the Heat in 2010.)

The Thunder-Rockets game averaged 5.9 million viewers. Viewing peaked at 7.1 million viewers. The second part of the double header with the Warriors beating the Lakers averaged 5.1 million viewers.

NBC was the highest rated broadcast network Tuesday night, thanks to basketball.

To be fair, those opening night games came before the gambling indictments were announced, But I was still  watching the next day. 

NBCUniversal is paying $2.4 billion a year for NBA games on NBC and Peacock. How does it make that back? We’ll see how many people sign up for Peacock that haven’t already. But advertisers are on the team. NBCU has reportedly been able to get $130,000 per 30 second commercial for regular season games on NBC, compared with the $50,000 Warner Bros. Discovery was getting for games on TNT.

So why are we watching? Yes, we want to see great performances. Victor Wenbenyama scoring 40 points against the Dallas Lilliputians; SGA and the Thunder winning two thrilling double-overtime games. 

But at this point in the season, I really wanted to see Michael Jordan and Charles Barkely, two guys that haven’t played for 30 years.

Jordan was interviewed at his home by Mike Tirico in a taped segment on NBC  called MJ: Insights to Excellence. It was great to see the goat, and he was unintentionally funny. 

Jordan said he wasn’t’ on TV for the money. It’s always for the money. And he said he hadn’t picked up a basketball in years. He told a story about renting a house for a golf tournament and being asked to shoot one free throw for the homeowner’s kids. Jordan talked about how nervous he was . . .but of course he swished the shot.  

For the record, there’s video of the incident. See below.

Next week’s MJ installment should be more interesting as he talks about load management. I’ll bet he’ll be against it.

Then there was Inside the NBA making its way to ESPN. There was some concern that ESPN would bowdlerize the show, but Barkley, Shaq, Kenny and Ernie seemed to be letting it all hang out. Shaq called it "the real opening night."

They said it was an honor to be on ESPN because that is where every NBA player wants to be seen. But they also joked about kissing up to ESPN and showed memes of ESPN execs watching the first seven minutes of the show nervously, and later counting their money. 

The new pregame sponsor, Popeyes, got a ton of air time and they joked about how the slimmed-down Round Mound of Rebound had been on the ESPN diet.

What didn’t they say and do? Shaq fell down going to the video board and replays focused on Shaq behind. 

Ernie accidently slipped and said that they were on TNT and suggested they put in a jar to collect money every time someone made that mistake.

They also noted that the set had the same graphics and they were using the same makeup and wondered where all the “ESPN money” went.

And then just to make a point about how the world of NBA TV has changed, during the Ernie’s Neat-O Stat of the Night segment–which still hasn’t found a sponsor–Ernie  challenged Barkley to connect NBA announcers with the networks they were now working for. It didn’t go great for Chuck.

It wasn’t all fun and games. After the gambling scandal broke, the guys had a thoughtful discussion of the issues and argued about the addictive nature of gambling.

On Friday night Amazon Prime Video launched its NBA coverage. It mostly looked first class, but there was one odd moment when Prime analysts Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Blake Griffin and Dwyane Wade explained show to beat pick and rolls by pre-switching. It was odd because they were playing D with only four guys on the studio floor.

It’s going to be an interesting season.

DA BEARS

Please, don’t get me started about the Bears ending their winning streak. They get credit for beating the bad teams on their schedule, but that doesn’t necessarily make them good.

It’s getting tough to keep rooting for Caleb Williams. We want him to be great, right? But it feels more likely that Bill Simmons’ hot take (which has been haunting me for days) that backup QB Tyson Bagent will be put in as a starter this season will be coming true.