NBA Finals Game 5 Ratings Crash, Viewership Plummets 70% from 2019
Basketball fans tune out following radical-left BLM push from teams and players
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The NBA's Finals Game 5 saw another TV ratings bloodbath, with viewership down a staggering 70 percent from 2019.
The basketball league had been hoping for a boost this year as the games returned to screens.
NBA executives foresaw a supposedly sports-starved population turning to the Association for desperately needed entertainment relief.
However, the NBA has taken a historical nosedive that appears to be timed with the decision by teams and players to promote the radical-left Black Lives Matter organization during games.
The political messaging being pushed onto the public by multi-millionaire sports stars seems to have taken its toll on the fans.
Each of the Finals games has seen record low viewing figures.
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Friday night’s Game 5 drew 5.7 million viewers, according to TVLine.
While that very low number is actually an improvement compared to the viewership numbers earned by the first three games in the series, it's a huge drop from last year, according to Breitbart.
It represents a near 70 percent decline from the 18.22 million viewers who tuned-in for Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals when the Golden State Warriors took on the Toronto Raptors.
That’s right, Game 5 of the 2020 Finals (which includes LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers) drew over 12.5 million fewer viewers than a game which included a team from Canada.
Game 1 of the Finals brought with it the lowest viewership since 1994, and Game 2 was the lowest ever on record.
Though, that was before Game 3 beat out Game 2 by becoming the least-watched Finals game in NBA history, by peaking with a paltry 4.395 million viewers.
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As Breitbart’s Warner Todd Huston reports:
This horrific collapse should not be surprising after polls have found that many fans now believe that basketball is far too political.
A Sept. 2 Harris poll found that 39 percent of respondent who identified as sports fans felt that the league was too political.
And another 19 percent said that they had turned off pro basketball because of the NBA’s deep links to China.
The 2020 post-COVID season launched with the heavy-handed presence of the anti-American Black Lives Matter agenda.
Recently, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that next year the NBA will likely not feature the on-court social justice displays that have become commonplace this season.
The commissioner also says he understands that fans just want to see a basketball game, and not be subjected to social justice messaging.
