NBA Commissioner Adam Silver: “If we were going into a Super Bowl and it was Packers vs. Steelers you guys would celebrate that. People wouldn’t talk about Pittsburgh being a small market. It’s been intentional to create a CBA that allows more teams to compete.”

36 comments

  1. We know this.

    It was designed to stop the Clippers/Warriors especially.

  2. its not about the market, its about marketable stars. new faces in the nba finals is good for the league. its how new stars are born.

  3. Half the people who watch the superbowl don’t really care about the match up and it’s just a holiday to spend times with friends. You can’t really do that for the NBA except a game 7 which gets insane ratings for the NBA.

  5. cj mccollum got tired of being daddy’d by the warriors for years and decided to do smth about it now

  6. Culture matters more in the NFL

    Baltimore and New York are two vastly different cities.

    Literally no player would go to the Giants over the Ravens looking at the franchises the past ten years, because the Ravens consistently develop players and maximize them while New York ruins guys and goes 5-12 every season

  8. The NFL promotes those teams and puts their marquee games in primetime while the NBA is historically hostile to smaller markets and that is the issue more than the economic reasons the CBA “fixes”.

  9. “We’ve de-valued our Regular season via: load management practices, archaic scheduling, inconsistent officiating, lazy media partners, a confusing “In Season Tournament” structure & over reliant Star marketing approach to the point that no one outside of the team markets care by the time we get to the Playoffs.”

    “Yet here, let me compare 2 legacy franchises from the most media dominant domestic league to ours and call it apples to apples!”

  10. …it’s the super bowl, adam lol. The SB would get more viewers than every finals game combined maybe

  11. Teams in small cities in the NFL can have large national fan bases, and both the Packers and the Steelers have large national fan bases. There are other teams that do not have large fan bases and it would probably be at least a slight ratings loss if the Super Bowl was like, Carolina vs Jacksonville.

  12. Bro didn’t want to say Colts

    And he’s comparing apples to oranges.

    The Super Bowl is practically a goddamn national holiday.

  15. It’s the media throwing fits because they don’t get an all expenses paid trip to LA,NYC,etc. because the only value a location has is the nightlife and anywhere that isn’t one of the big markets is like being sent to Siberia .

    I’d love to have a job that allows me to travel. They’ll be okay having to spend a series between OKC and Indianapolis

  16. I definitely don’t like everyone talking about market sizes and all that but I think this is a pretty bad analogy from Silver. For one, the packers and steelers are two of the most storied franchises in NFL history, which the pacers and thunder are not.

    The bigger issue though is that the NBA Finals is NOT the super bowl and not even remotely comparable. Most people watch the super bowl every year because it’s a cultural institution, not because of the teams in it, or even that they like football in a lot of cases.

  17. Packers and Steelers isnt really comparable tho. I get it “small” market but those are two of the most iconic teams in the league lol

  18. The only people who care about this big market crap is NY and LA and the blowhards on sports talk radio and TV. I’m pumped for this finals because it’s not one of the overhyped teams with a shitty fan base

  19. It’s a bad example. The NFL markets teams and the NBA markets stars and the stars typically end up in major markets.

    ESPN and Fox are complicit because most of their programming is centered around football. You want this to stop? Make NBA TV a better product. It’s clear the major networks won’t do it so you have to do it. SVP, Speak, and others brought up the lack of coverage. First Take openly admitted that the people want major markets and football.

  20. Ironically I think the focus on parity is what’s hurting the nba. The nba is known for dynasties and we don’t have one anymore. I think OKC is on the brink of starting one and it’s great opportunity for the nba to show they can market small cities

  21. Steelers and Packers are two of the most storied franchises in the NFL this was not a good example for his point lmao

  24. As a basketball fan, I love this matchup and I am excited for it. Only casuals are saying this is a boring finals and ratings are down bla bla…

  25. The nfl is completely immune to any of this shit at the moment. People will watch the nfl, particularly the super bowl, no matter the market or storyline or any variable really.

    But the nba (and mlb) have this problem and there’s no getting around it. Yankees vs dodgers or lakers vs knicks will always be the dream ws/finals match up, which sucks because it feels like it affects sports coverage and journalism, but it’s the reality.

    So in the short term, pure ratings and finances, it’s bad for the nba. Good league management could turn it into exposure for the smaller markets and create growth for teams outside the big ones – a long term positive. But that remains to be seen if the nba (and the organizations that cover the nba) would even attempt it.

  28. Honestly I’d actually be all for Pittsburgh getting an expansion team

    Move Minnesota to the East, add Seattle, Vegas, and Kansas City to the West, and add Pittsburgh to the East.

    And if you wanted to expand further you could add either San Diego or St. Louis in the West and either Cincinnati or Louisville in the East to get an even 36 teams.

  29. Rings pretty hollow when you keep rewarding teams with first picks for trading away their stars to la market.

  30. I won’t watch it because I’m not a fan of refball, nothing to do with markets

  32. The fact this is what seems to be the main talking point about the finals is hilarious.

    1. Foul merchant
    2. Small markets

    Can’t even find a breakdown or analyst talking Xs and Os on any main sports network

    Nba by far has the worst media in sports

  33. If you’re talking about market size, you’re losing.

    The NFL could put the Cardinals and Browns in the Super Bowl and it’d do 100 million easy by the sheer legacy of shit those 2 teams have behind them. No one cares about 2 try hard franchises that consistently make the playoffs but don’t do anything with it.

  34. The NFL does an infinitely better job marketing their good teams, regardless of market size. Kansas City (KANSAS CITY) has been the face of the NFL, and will be for the next 10 years because they are GOOD AT THE SPORT. Most of the great teams are not from SF/LA/NYC in the NFL and yet they have no issues w market size

    The NBA could learn many lessons from the NFL.

    The easiest lesson is maybe the people who have the responsibility of talking about the game should stop shitting on it for random reasons.

  35. I for one am looking forward to the Finals for the first time in 5 years. It’s nice not to have the usual suspects in it.

  36. The nuance that silver is missing is how the nfl is ran as a business. The nfl doesn’t market its players heavily. We don’t see the faces of nfl players during the games much, and outside of bad news about players, nfl fans don’t stay connected with a NFL player’s life in the same way nba fans do. No player in the nfl will ever be bigger than a team or the nfl itself. Because of this, you’ll always have nba fans that are more fans of players than teams or the nba itself.

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