The Victor Wembanyama hype train is in full speed, and the NBA got a taste how much of an impact the French phenom can have on the league's TV ratings during the NBA Draft lottery on Tuesday.
With the whole sports world waiting for months to see which team would lady luck smile upon and get the 2023 no. 1 overall pick, it didn't come as a surprise that millions of fans tuned in on the draft lottery in anticipation of the exciting results.
Sure enough, the NBA recorded its best draft lottery audience in years, with the 2023 iteration drawing 3.24 million viewers (via Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal). It is the highest viewership for the event in four years, though the 2019 lottery or the Zion Williamson sweepstakes drew more with 4.43 million viewers.
Compared to last year however–when the likes of Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren and Jabari Smith Jr. were up for grabs–the Wembanyama lottery got 2.15 million more audience.
Of course this doesn't mean that Williamson was a more hyped prospect than Wembanyama. As everyone knows, Wemby has been generating headlines throughout the year. Many are even calling him the best prospect since LeBron James in 2003 because of his combination of size, skills and mobility–which has never been seen before from someone that stands at 7-foot-4 tall.
There could be plenty of reasons why there were less viewers in this year's lottery compared to the Zion year. For one, Victor Wembanyama was not in attendance during the event unlike Zion Williamson who was there and watched it live. Furthermore, since Williamson is an American prospect who played for Duke, more people in the US know him more. Wembanyama has been in the news for months, but the casual fans are probably not that aware of him.
Whatever the case may be, there's no denying that a lot more people are waiting for Wembanyama's arrival now, especially since he's poised to join the San Antonio Spurs.
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