What does the NFL have that the NBA is lacking?
The NBA doesn’t have anything like a Super Bowl
BY HENRY ABBOTT, JAROD HECTOR, TRAVIS MORAN, and DAVID THORPE
The NBA is popular and has a big PR team armed with facts and figures to prove it. But they’re only so convincing.
In last week’s AFC championship game, 57.4 million people watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills. Many Super Bowls have had reported viewing audiences in excess of 110 million people.
When prime Michael Jordan walked on water through a close-fought NBA Finals, the NBA mustered the league’s biggest-ever one-game audience of 35.9 million viewers. Last June’s Finals averaged 5.8 million viewers. [CORRECTION: Last June’s Finals had a 5.8 average rating, which in real terms means an average of 11.3 million viewers.] A few weeks ago, the NBA had an instant classic from the league’s two best teams: The nationally televised Cavaliers vs. Thunder drew 1.87 million viewers.
The NBA numbers are small enough you don’t bring that big game up to a stranger—when less than one percent of Americans watch something, you’re the weirdo. Football, though …
Not long after the Eagles and Chiefs earned trips to the Super Bowl on January 26, we discussed contrasts between the NBA and the NFL on the TrueHoop editorial call:
HENRY:
No one would describe me as a football fan. I grew up in Portland, with no NFL team or tradition, and live in New Jersey—where we can’t decide if we support the Eagles, Giants, Jets, or some other team for some other reason. And yet, recently I was invited to four different places to watch NFL football. I went to one, an hour late. I thought it would be my buddy’s house and a couple friends. It turns out it was standing room only—almost all of a college swim team, little kids, grandparents, a dining room table full of pizzas. Three TVs going in three rooms, everybody was riveted to the game.
Forget matching that. The NBA can’t touch that—certainly not among predominantly white audiences.
What does the NFL have that the NBA is lacking?
JAROD:
I mean, in a nutshell, what you just said: that ability to get everybody to come together and just hang out because every game is so meaningful. Now, granted, this is the conference championship. But still, for a random Week 10 game, a bunch of people will gather because it’s a huge deal.
DAVID:
I used to be one of those guys. I’m proud to tell you: I did not watch a single down.
A couple things. Obviously, we’ve all talked about this, and Jarod just said it—the NFL just don’t play nearly as many games.
And it’s so baked into our tradition as Americans. Once horse racing was that sport, then boxing. Now, football is having its day.
Henry is asking why. It’s part of the tradition a lot of us grew up with. I grew up watching Brent Musburger on CBS with my dad and my brothers. I know we’re not typical, but in more recent years, we all decided we’re not making it our life’s work to make sure our kids do nothing on Sunday for 11 hours.
And it’s mind-blowing. I watched one NFL game recently, and I was pretty amazed at the level of how many guys are incredible players. There’s so much strategy involved. (Mostly, fans are just thinking: Throw it deep!)
There are so few games, and they all matter so much. Maybe the only basketball thing that’s even close is the NCAA tournament.
JAROD:
Opening weekend of the [NCAA] tournament, everyone is figuring out how to get out of work on Thursday and Friday to watch the games at noon. That’s a thing. The other thing, too, Henry, is that even though football now owns every day of the week, they really own Sunday.
DAVID:
Also: fantasy and gambling are huge parts of it, too.
If basketball did one-game playoffs, guys, I think it would be more like football, but that’ll never happen in our lifetimes.
HENRY:
I grew up with an English dad who didn’t know anything about any of these sports—literally nothing. But I know football was part of your relationship with your dad, David. I was looking around the room yesterday, noticing that a bunch of people—not just men—mentioned their dads, or had their dad there.
DAVID:
Exactly. When I was growing up, we had four channels. There just wasn’t much to gather around, to do together. For a long time, that was baseball. It’s just not the case anymore. Football took it over here, took it over here. I’m sure in Europe, it’s soccer.
TRAVIS:
In the ’90s, at least I remember in the late ’80s, early ’90s, mid ’90s, the NBA did compete for Sunday with that Sunday game on NBC, right? That was a big deal for us. I didn’t grow up in a very football-heavy family. My brother is huge into football for the reasons David just mentioned, which has nothing to do with dad. Yeah, fantasy and gambling do drive a lot of it.
JAROD:
Another part, though, is that, in recent years, the NFL has not been a divisive product in any way.
People aren’t livid about shooting too many 3s. It’s not a thing.
The elephant in the room in the NFL, Henry, is that the owners and franchises are still in charge and that matters. It’s a story for white fans, right? In the NBA, LeBron James is in charge, right? Like, and that doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. That’s no secret, right?
HENRY:
You know, that’s right. At the AFC championship game, they flew the B2 bomber over the stadium. Important military people at the Pentagon, or somewhere, calculated that was worth it. They’d reach the people they wanted to reach with the message they wanted to send by using that gazillion-dollar plane at that event. This NFL game ranked on their list of priorities. What fucking miracle would it take for them to trot that thing out for an NBA game? I know it doesn’t make sense, because it’s an indoor sport, but also the NBA just can’t deliver that kind of affirmation of America.
DAVID:
It’s a fucking amazing point, because they’re talking about playing an outdoor event at some point, the way hockey is doing on New Year’s Day. So, no one’s going to bring that up in the meeting when they approve the outdoor court: Have a military bomber fly overhead.
JAROD:
Like when North Carolina and Michigan State played on the aircraft carrier.
HENRY:
There’s a vision of America that’s a little Norman Rockwell, that doesn’t stand up well to scrutiny, but I do feel like in Trump and in NFL, and in the military and in the flyover—it’s a kind of Fuck yeah, America! mythology. That version of the globe where this is the city on the hill, the shining lights and all that, has been struggling. But on Sundays you get to go again, you know? On Sundays, this nation, it appears, is just better.
JAROD:
I was talking about this with a buddy of mine recently. Football is uniquely American, yeah? Like, it belongs to us. No other country. It’s our thing. Basketball is a world thing—obviously, soccer. We’re not the best at those things sometimes, right? But this is ours, and we are the best.
TRAVIS:
Jarod, you go to NBA games as regularly as anybody here, you know? I went to that game in Minneapolis recently, and I did not notice any connection to the military.
JAROD:
Totally agree.
TRAVIS:
Any game at Wrigley, you’re going to get, like, a soldier salute at some point, right? So, you get it in baseball; you get in football.
HENRY:
They do it some [in the NBA]. You go to a home Mavericks game, there’s a fair amount. The color guard is there.
JAROD:
But when the NBA does it, there’s like 85 billion things going on—like the stupid CarMax car race is happening, and everybody’s distracted.
I will tell you, though, when that thing happens with the veterans, holy hell! Everybody (not me) is all about the military-industrial complex. I’m like, “Fuck all that propaganda!”. Everybody’s standing up, like, cheering. I’m like, “Oh, my god—what are we doing?”
HENRY:
To David’s point, football is also amazing to watch, athletically.
JAROD:
Patrick Mahomes gets to at least the conference championship game every year!
HENRY:
They’ve won nine playoff games in a row. Mahomes’ lifetime playoff record is 17-3.
DAVID:
That is amazing.
It’s ironic because these sports are more brilliant than anybody knows. People think the NBA is basic math, but it’s calculus. Obviously, the NFL is calculus on steroids. It’s just a primitive view of what’s an incredibly sophisticated sport.
Maybe you know a basketball coach named Dr. Tom Davis? Yeah, he was Iowa’s coach. He coached Roy Marble. He gave an amazing speech once to 400 coaches at a clinic. And the first thing he started talking about was the arrogance of basketball coaches because we think our sport’s so complex when football’s got 11 dudes on both sides.
JAROD:
NFL halftime shows are way better at breaking down the game. In the NBA, Shaq and Chuck are doing “Who He Play For?” which is hilarious. I’m here for all that, but we can do both.
DAVID:
It’s a little ironic. They’re getting way more informed than basketball fans. Obviously, when I hear the discussions or read about them, whatever, fans argue over the same simpleton bullshit that they always have; they just want to watch the game at the most primal level. And I’m not saying they root for violence anymore.
By the way, Travis: that is, one controversy I do hear about is how much they protect the offense now. I mean, people like Bill Belichick talk about it. I don’t really care either way. But compared to the NBA, they’re still tuning in right at record numbers, right? Ratings are amazing still?
JAROD:
Over 57 million people.
DAVID:
It was two great teams, too, right?
JAROD:
The Chiefs continuing dynasty. And America wants Josh Allen to be the best so bad, for all the obvious reasons.
HENRY:
I was blown away. I went to the house full of people for the first game, where there were fans of both the Commanders and the Eagles. But once that settled out, everyone was like: “Go Bills!”
DAVID:
They’re sick of the Chiefs always winning. And the Bills are famous for never winning.
JAROD:
Yes, that’s part of it. There’s also another part. The racial element is a huge factor and we don't need to shy away from it. This is America.
DAVID:
All my friends just love Mahomes.
TRAVIS:
There’s a “nobody outside of New York likes Derek Jeter” thing, you know? That’s kind of like Mahomes.
DAVID:
I don’t know why Mahomes hasn’t tipped like Tiger did. But all my friends watch football, and all of them are “Mahomes or die.” They just want greatness.
HENRY:
I just learned that Patriots fans are wildly against Kansas City right now because Tom Brady never won three Super Bowls in a row, and Mahomes might.
JAROD:
Of course, they are. Sorry, he’s already better than Brady.
DAVID:
It’s like the LeBron versus Jordan argument. We could argue LeBron was better than anyone. I mean, LeBron was better over his career. There’s an argument that Jordan was the best in any one season. You could go back and forth on that. But Mahomes is the most talented player I’ve ever seen play—not that I watch him a lot. But that Quarterback show on Netflix? I don’t know if you guys saw it, but holy shit that dude works.
HENRY:
There’s one other part of this that I want to acknowledge: Football is very full on, in a way that makes for a fascinating TV viewing experience.
I’m sorry nobody else on this call saw one of the most magical sporting moments I’ve ever seen.
DAVID:
So are you describing the Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift kiss?
Sorry. Go ahead.
HENRY:
So, early in the fourth quarter, Philadelphia is on the one-yard line and about to score to turn an 11-point lead into a 17-point lead. There’s a Commanders defender named Frankie Luvu. He has face black over his entire face, except for the eyes, and he’s an incredible athlete. As they line up on second down, everybody’s just still as statues. But this linebacker, Luvu—he’s in the backfield in the end zone, and he just fucking runs, boom, step, step, step. And then he leaps and he’s full-on fucking Superman. He launches his body over both lines, which have not moved.
It’s incredible! The audacity! The ref is talking to this guy, and he’s just like: Bro, what? Please don’t do that again.
As they lined up again, I literally said out loud: “It’s probably worth doing that again. The offense looked a little rattled. Who’s used to human missiles? Time it up right, and it’s a sack.”
And you guys … He did it again on the very next play. You don’t see humans Superman their bodies like that! He’s wearing all the colorful red, just flying through the air as high and as hard and as fast as a human can fly. As they call the next penalty, you can see Luvu give a look like: I know, but I had to try it.
That kind of full-on attack might not exist in any other sport. (Maybe in rugby or something?) But it was a very wild way to move your body. Very free, right? A very audacious way to move. I can see that that’s a better TV product than scoring in the post.
JAROD:
Henry, are you saying you are more of an NFL fan than NBA fan? Is that what I’m getting from this call?
HENRY:
Ha! But for real, playing once a week, they’re playing so fucking hard. That does make for these audacious moments that are a big part of the appeal, right? For sure, the three-year-olds in the room knew that was a big moment. You don’t have to appreciate the context when that guy’s flying like a fucking eagle. That’s pretty cool.
DAVID:
For whatever reason, because the field’s bigger and there’s more players, the average fan can notice and appreciate things even when you don’t have the ball in your hands. In basketball, no one sees a thing but the ball. In football, though, the camerawork is way better than in the NBA. The NFL, the broadcast is amazing.
I complain about this all the time on our podcast: I don’t know why our NBA directors hate our viewers so much. There’s, one game, one play, a game we miss because we’re showing a stupid replay that had no impact—or we’re in half-screen, missing these potentially amazing plays because we’re interviewing some 12-year-old about something. Or a game ends, and I see some chippiness going on, and I want to see the chippy guys. The other day, it was Pacers Pistons, where “Beef” Stewart was doing his thing, and the director decided to show us the face of a player just impassively shaking hands.
HENRY:
David is saying that, in the NBA broadcast, they don’t treat it like every possession matters. They’re not obsessed over off-ball action or post-game chippiness. We don’t agree, in basketball, that every second matters. But we do agree in football, right?
There was a play where Mahomes turned it over. In real time, it was very hard to know what happened, but Buffalo was celebrating and pointing like they had recovered the ball. Immediately, they went to commercial, and I was fucking blown away. A few seconds later, the CBS broadcast plays music on the theme of a takeaway, and they show crazy HD slow motion of Mahomes botching a hand off, and then a second slow-motion replay of the Bills’ Ed Oliver wrestling the ball away like a freaking superhero. Perfect music, perfect resolution, perfect framing, all literally a few seconds after the event.
We had no idea what happened, and now we know precisely what happened. Those cameras, set up that way, that’s something like $100,000 per. They just don’t invest in that for the NBA, because it’s just not viable. The audience doesn’t agree that those plays matter that much in the NBA. In basketball, there are always a bunch more plays. Scores aren’t individually that important. The plays don’t matter that much. The game ratings are pretty low. There are empty seats. We don’t have an absolute fascination with what happened on a first-quarter turnover in the NBA.
David does because his job depends on it, right? But most fans don’t. And I feel that’s kind of at the heart of what we’re talking about.
JAROD:
No, you’re right, Henry. Everybody who watches sports agrees that the last two minutes are really good in the NBA. Everything before that seems irrelevant, even though we know it matters!
DAVID:
Henry, I want you to talk to a psychologist. The experience of viewing back in the day ultimately made me feel terrible. I hated to see how badly people got hurt and how it made fans go crazy. I felt terrible! I don’t know how often that’s even happening anymore, because I don’t watch. But that’s why the NFL is not popular at my house.
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