ESPN, Disney Hoping For History And Magic From NBA Finals 2024

There’s a massive buzz in sports media right now, including today’s report from The Wall Street Journal that the NBA is closing in on a $76 billion package of new carriage rights agreements with NBC, Amazon, and ESPN, which would be a significant realignment for viewers and broadcasters. We’ve also got the impending launch of the new streaming bundle Venu Sports and the stunning growth of the WNBA and women’s sports. On the unalloyed good news front (especially for Boston and Dallas folks), tonight marks a key moment in the U.S. sports media calendar – the start of the NBA Finals (with that term now a well-marketed capitalization!).

For ESPN, the immediate question is whether this NBA Finals will create what the network has branded as “moments that matter”? For fans of the NBA, sports and media in general, what is the alchemy that produces such moments? Here’s one fan’s take on the secret sauce ingredients for NBA Finals, some of which are in place this year.

Iconic Teams (Brands to us media types)

The presence of marquee franchises unequivocally raises the level of attention, drama, and historical significance in NBA Finals. For baseball it’s the Yankees, Cubs, Dodgers and Red Sox (umm…not recently) and in basketball it really comes down to the Celtics and Lakers and maybe the Warriors now. We’ve got one of them this year as the Boston Celtics go for what would be a record 18^th championship (a special number for many of us). There is a texture and historical narrative that that surrounds a Celtics or Lakers pursuit of a championship that can’t be manufactured. It’s the kind of stuff creative producers take to new heights.

Stars and Stories

The NBA has done a better job of marketing its stars than any other U.S. sports league (other than the NFL’s Taylor Swift). The modern NBA came into being with the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson rivalry (and ultimate friendship) in the 1980s and has continued through Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Steph Curry and many more. This year features two of the most dynamic duos in the sport – Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving from the Dallas Mavericks and Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown of the Celtics. When you add in the off the court drama in Kyrie’s hate-hate relationship with seemingly the entire New England region (it’s a long story), you’ve got elements of some elements of Greek tragedy (Better Help usage is going to skyrocket if the Celtics lose to Kyrie).

Broadcast Personalities

Hey folks, it’s entertainment, so it matters who’s on the mic. Baseball was defined by Vin Scully and Jack Buck (“I don’t believe what I just saw!”) and in the 1980 U.S.-Soviet Union hockey game Al Michaels spontaneously scripted maybe the greatest sports line ever (“Do you believe in miracles?”). The NBA has benefitted from a series of well-known voices that have heightened the drama and “bigness” of moments for decades, including Brent Musberger at CBS covering Bird and Magic, Bob Costas at NBC in the Jordan years, the unmistakable Marv Albert, and now play-by-play man Mike Breen (with his signature call “Bang!”). Breen is still there, but today lacks the magic chemistry with his new partners J.J. Redick and Doris Burke that Albert had with Bill Walton and Breen himself developed with Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson. It’s not automatic.

Competition

There’s not much ESPN can do about this one. Sports after all offers up the ultimate reality TV without a pre-set script. The quality and intensity of the competition between the teams has a lot to do with how fondly and strongly an NBA Finals is remembered. A long series is certainly a boon to the bottom line of the broadcaster and the teams filling arenas and tends to cement more longer-term memories. And sometimes individual moments resonate long beyond the overall games themselves. For New Yorkers, even for those not alive at the time, Marv Albert’s reveal that “Willis Reed is coming out of the tunnel!” still delivers a chill down the spine. No pre-taped packages will work here – all you’ve got is hope is serendipity.

Since you asked (I see you out there) – here’s my own list of the top five NBA Finals (in chronological order) that have “mattered” most since the advent of the modern NBA over 40 years ago. Feel free to disagree.

1984 – Celtics/Lakers

So many elements at play here. This was the first Bird-Magic NBA Finals, a renewal of the historic Celtics-Lakers rivalry that dominated the 1960s, and it went to seven hair-raising games. You still see Kevin McHale’s clothesline take-down of the Lakers’ Kurt Rambis show up on plenty of NBA highlight (or lowlight) reels. Although it may be hard to believe, this was also one of the first NBA Finals to be broadcast live nationally. As recently as Bird’s first championship in 1981, several of the games were tape-delayed to air after the late local news – they weren’t seen as likely to drive sufficient ratings in prime time!

1998 – Chicago Bulls/Utah Jazz

This was the Bulls’ sixth and final championship before Michael Jordan’s retirement. It has been immortalized in the ESPN documentary series “The Last Dance.” It had big stars and one of those craved-for “moments” as Jordan hit the final jumper to win the game and championship by one point with five seconds left. As the late Jack Buck might have said “I don’t believe what I just saw!”.

2002 – Lakers/New Jersey Nets

Stay with me on this one. This was a four-game sweep, and no one is really going to remember this Nets team (they don’t even play in New Jersey anymore). But it was the first and only “three-peat” (three championships in a row) in the NBA since the Bill Russell Celtics in the 1960s. The Lakers featured massive stars in Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant as well as hall of fame coach Phil Jackson. The announcers included Marv Albert and the late great Bill Walton – gold at the mic.

2008 – Celtics/Lakers

I know, enough already with the Celtics and Lakers! But this was the first NBA Finals meetings between these two teams in over 20 years. There were stars galore, with Kobe in LA and Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen for the Celtics. At the end was the enduring memory of the championship-starved Garnett screaming out “Anything is possible!” which became his signature rallying cry and the title of an acclaimed documentary several years ago.

2016 – Cleveland Cavaliers/Golden State Warriors

It may be weird that I’m including a Finals where the dynastic Warriors lost, but this was a huge one. The LeBron James-led Cavs won the first professional championship for any Cleveland franchise since Jim Brown and the 1964 Browns. Kyrie Irving (there he is again) hit the famous last shot to win it in seven games. On a personal note, I watched this one live in the middle of the night (and early morning) at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes on the first night of Cannes Lions with a lot of unhappy Silicon Valley folks. Warning to Cannes attendees who are NBA fans – you may in for a couple of very late nights this year!