There are approximately 113 million television households in the United States, and the average rating for the NBA Championship Series showed that 6.9 million of them watched the series between Cleveland and San Antonio.
Remember the late-night Monday night opener on ESPN last year between Oakland and San Diego? Awful game. San Diego won, 27-0. It was pretty much over at the half, when the Chargers led 13-0 and the Raiders couldn't get out of their own way on offense. That game -- after a weekend that started with Thursday night football, went into Sunday afternoon football and Sunday night football, and had a Monday nighter before the second game on the West Coast -- started at 10:25 p.m. EST and ended at 1:14 a.m. Tuesday. And it was on cable TV, which gets a lower rating anyway because not every TV household in America is wired for cable.
The Raiders-Chargers debacle was seen by 7.9 million American TV households [one million more than those who watched the NBA Finals]
We all know football is king in this country, but if the best the NBA has to offer gets trounced by the worst the NFL has to offer ... well, the NBA is in more than a little trouble.
