To the casual NBA fan or those tuning into the NBA for the first time this season, the 2025 NBA Finals are nothing to write home about.
Neutral fans don’t seem to care that the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers have traded blows, tied 2-2, heading back to Oklahoma for a crucial Game 5. The ratings reflect the lack of interest as the series has averaged only 8.95 million viewers through three games, a 23% drop from last year’s NBA Finals and on pace to be the lowest since the ratings were first tracked in 1988.
Despite the low ratings, this year’s NBA Finals is a dream come true for diehard fans. Outside of a Game 2 blowout, each game has been competitive until the final buzzer, displaying an elite level of basketball under two of the league’s best coaches.
Remembering this year’s Finals as historically lackluster would be a disservice to two of the NBA’s most complete teams, undermining one of the most competitive matchups the NBA has delivered over the last decade.
SMALL-MARKET DOMINATION?
Oklahoma City and Indiana are two of the smallest markets in the NBA. They rank 22nd and 26th in TV market size, respectively.
They have a combined market size of under 2 million homes between the two teams. This is compared to the 7.45 million of the top-ranked New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets. It’s not hard to see where the drop in ratings is coming from.
If that wasn’t enough to scare off casual viewers, this year’s Finals don’t feature stars that fans grew up watching. This trend followed last year’s playoffs.
Last year’s postseason was the first since 2005 that at least one of LeBron James, Stephen Curry, or Kevin Durant didn’t reach the conference semifinals.
While all three of those aging superstars are must-see TV whenever they step on the court, anyone who’s watched this year’s Finals knows that the league still has plenty of star power without them.
OKC is thriving behind the league’s newly crowned MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The Pacers are an offensive machine with All-NBA point guard Tyrese Haliburton at the controls.
Both have provided career-defining moments through these first four games.
Haliburton’s clutch shot-making this postseason has already put him in rare company. His midrange pull-up in the final seconds of Game 1 helped Indiana stun the Thunder after trailing the entire game.
Gilgeous-Alexander has put the Thunder on his back every time they’ve needed a bucket. He picks apart opposing defenses with his deadly midrange and ability to get to the rim.
The newly crowned MVP buried Indiana with 15 points in the fourth quarter. This is the most he’s had in any quarter this postseason, to save OKC in Game 4.
For fans who just wanted a competitive series, the 2025 NBA Finals have been everything and more. Not only have the games been competitive, but Haliburton and Gilgeous-Alexander’s arrival this postseason could signal a changing of the guard in the NBA, one that will only improve the league moving forward.
A NEW ERA?
Not even ten years ago, this year’s NBA Finals matchup would have been unthinkable. After an era dominated by superteams spearheaded by the Warriors and Heat, the league hasn’t had a repeat champion for the last six seasons.
Of the last six champions, none of them have made it past the second round the following year.
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This is a new era of parity. This is due to the introduction of the luxury tax penalties. The penalties make it harder for big-market teams to keep an expensive core together.
Teams are now focusing on filling out their benches rather than stockpiling talent and hoping for the best.
That benefits the smaller-market teams like Indiana and OKC, which don’t have the same financial flexibility as big-market teams, giving every team a better chance to compete for a title if they play their cards right.
Sam Presti has molded OKC into a historically efficient team after years of drafting well and stockpiling draft picks. Kevin Pritchard has quietly turned the Pacers into the juggernaut they are today by surrounding Haliburton with an elite bench.
When asked about where the league is headed last week, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that the new changes aren’t meant to force a different champion every year, but to provide “parity of opportunity.”
Ahead of the biggest game of the NBA season, that’s exactly what’s happening. The league’s newest stars are establishing themselves among the NBA’s elite, small-market teams are finally catching up to the league’s biggest markets, and the level of basketball is as high as it’s been in a decade.
If the lower ratings mean extremely competitive games between small-market teams versus higher ratings while watching a big-market team stockpile stars and blow out the rest of the competition, it should be an obvious choice to sacrifice the ratings in the short term.
The casual fan might not see value in this. For diehards, this NBA Finals is the start of a new era of parity that the league has missed.
Low ratings aside, that’s great news for the league and its future moving forward.
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