The NBA Finals are in full force right now, and we are at least two games away from crowning a new champion. These playoffs have been a coming-of-age story for the new generation of NBA stars. Top stars like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and James Harden missed out on the conference finals for the first time since 2010. Two superstars are looking to win their first championship in Chris Paul and Giannis Antetokounmpo. But it appears this wasn’t enough to get fans watching compared to other sports.
On July 11th, the world witnessed Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the Phoenix Suns and Milwaukee Bucks. Along with this, the UEFA European Championship (better known as the Euros) final between England and Italy took place from Wembley Stadium in London, England. And surprisingly, fans in the US were more interested in the latter.
MLS Buzz on Twitter revealed that the Euros final between England and Italy garnered 9.4 million viewers in the United States. Comparatively, the first three games of the NBA Finals had an average rating of 8.9 million in the United States. So on average, more fans in the US watched the Euros finals over the NBA Finals.
An average of 9.4 million people in the United States watched the European final.
That outperforms the ongoing NBA Finals, which is averaging 8.9 million.
That’s insane.
— MLS Buzz (@MLS_Buzz) July 13, 2021
Given how popular basketball is in the United States, this comes as a huge surprise. Last season, the NBA Finals had its lowest ratings in history. This season, the playoffs have had better ratings, presumably thanks to the return of fans into arenas.
Perhaps one reason as to why the ratings weren’t as good as the Euros final is because of the fact that there are two small-market teams in the Finals. Fans were clamoring for a dream NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets. However, both teams crashed out of the playoffs in the first and second round respectively. Small market teams usually fail to garner the interest that some of the big market teams do.
For the NBA, they will be hoping that this is a statistical outlier, rather than the start of a trend.
