The best two words in sports: ‘Game 7.' Are ESPN and the NBA ready?
Ahead of a highly anticipated Game 7 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night, the Athletic's sports media columnist Richard Deitsch connected with sports business editor Dan Shanoff to talk about the expectations and pressure — not on the teams, but on the league and its broadcast partner ESPN to deliver a great experience for fans.
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Shanoff: It's a cliche, but it's also true — the two greatest words in sports are 'Game 7.' What kind of pressure are the NBA and ESPN under to deliver a presentation that matches the moment, or is 'Game 7' the kind of thing that no league or network can screw up, because it's so inherently interesting/dramatic?
Deitsch: There was a very famous monologue delivered by Al Michaels prior to the start of ABC's coverage of the famous Miracle On Ice game:
'What we have at hand, the rarest of sporting events — an event that needs no buildup, no superfluous adjectives.'
(Shanoff sidebar to readers: Take 60 seconds and watch the first 45 seconds of the broadcast, just Michaels' intro right at the start of this video. It is as close to perfect as it gets in sports TV.)
That's true of all Game 7s and title games for major sports. The interest is inherent.
The broadcaster has an immense duty to make you feel like you are about to witness a monumental event. Sunday's ABC presentation needs to highlight what the game means for these teams and in a historical sense. If ESPN/ABC is smart, they will go heavy in the pregame coverage on the last time we had a Game 7 in the NBA Finals.
The best advice I can give — and this is often hard for ESPN — is to not make this game about ESPN or what an ESPN personality thinks. Make it about the game. Please.
Quite frankly, I don't know to whom you might be referring. Speaking of making it about the game: ESPN play-by-play announcer Mike Breen's 'Blocked by James!' from the NBA Finals Game 7 in 2016 is one of the most iconic NBA broadcast calls of all time. Are he, Doris Burke and Richard Jefferson under any unusual pressure to deliver 'a moment?'
The pressure will be to make sure they nail the game's biggest moments, but that is just as much on the producer and director. This announcing booth will have something that can benefit them for Game 7 — they were all part of the last time we saw a Game 7 for the NBA Finals: Breen was the play-by-play announcer, Burke was the sideline reporter and Jefferson played for the Cavs. They should delve into that during the broadcast. What's unique about this broadcast is that it is likely the last time we see them as a trio calling the NBA Finals.
To that point, for ESPN, what does success look like in a game like this?
Simple. Success is a broadcast where people talk about the game afterward and not the broadcast.
Speaking of the game presentation, the league seems to have been unusually responsive to audience (and columnist) critiques of the game broadcast, including adding digitized Finals logos to the floor and bringing back televised pre-game player introductions for the first time in more than a decade. Why do you think that is, and what do you make of that approach?
The NBA was reactive here, but it's better to be reactive with a popular change than not to react at all. I did a podcast last week with Jon Lewis, editor and founder of Sports Media Watch, and both of us were struck by how much the ABC broadcast of these Finals didn't feel much different than any other postseason game. Player introductions make a game feel bigger. It's not rocket science. For so many people who watch pro wrestling, it's the entrance to the ring that gets people the most excited. Think 'Cult of Personality' playing for C.M. Punk. This is where I think NBC is going to do well next year with the NBA. They event-ize everything.
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And, as you said, 'Game 7' is inherently an event. Front Office Sports' Colin Salao posted an interesting point: The past four NBA Finals Game 7s saw a 65 percent lift in audience from the rest of the series. For this one, that would put it just under 20 million viewers, which would be the most watched Finals game of the 2020s. Of course, it won't compare to the Game 7 in 2016 — Cavs vs. Warriors, LeBron vs. Steph — which drew 31 million viewers (for good reason). Where do you think Monday's Game 7 nets out?
Before the series started, I predicted (1) Pacers-Thunder would be a tremendous series, (2) that two small-market teams was not a formula for viewership success and (3) that if the series went seven, it would draw more viewers than this year's Ohio State-Notre Dame title game (22.1 million viewers).
Two of those three predictions were correct. Given the viewership of the first six games, I don't think this series has enough momentum to get 22 million viewers. I think the Game 7 lift will be smaller than in years past. So I expect 15-18 million viewers for Game 7.
Whatever the viewership number, the NBA and ESPN get bailed out because the average viewership for the series will not be as catastrophic as it would have been with a short series.
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