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As the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers continue the 2025 NBA Finals, all the talk continues to be about ratings for whatever reason. Two budding stars in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Haliburton are trying to lead their respective teams to their franchise's first NBA Championship, and Adam Silver wants that to be the conversation.
Ahead of the NBA Finals, Silver made sure to address the ratings discussions.
Adam Silver fires back at ratings discussions from fans
Through the Eastern and Western Conference Finals, the NBA had seen a viewership increase and a social media views boom this postseason.
The 2025 Eastern Conference Finals between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks averaged 7 million viewers on TNT and truTV, which is up 10 percent vs. last year's series between the Boston Celtics and Pacers.
It's also the most-watched Eastern Conference Finals that ended in six games or fewer in 11 years.
The 2025 Western Conference Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves didn't have as strong of a showing as the Eastern Conference Finals, but still averaged 5.59 million viewers across the five-game series.
Overall, however, the 2025 NBA Playoffs averaged 4.5 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and TNT, which is up three percent vs. last year's postseason.
So when ratings were brought up during his annual NBA Finals media availability, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made sure to make his feelings known.
“I think about it a lot,” Silver said ahead of Game 1. “I mean, on one hand, I'm looking at Mike Bass, the Head of Communications, and I like the fact that people are talking about us. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It seems a little unusual how much discussion there is around ratings in this league. Again, as I said, I'm a fan of all sports and I follow lots of media and it seems like there's a lot more chatter. And even for me, just walking down the street and fans coming up to me often and it frustrates me that the first thing they say is, ‘how are the ratings,' or, ‘what are the ratings going to be,' as opposed to, ‘wow, you just had two incredible Conference Finals. What a great playoff series you've had.' So I can't quite put my finger on it.”
Fans on social media have been complaining for weeks about ratings as if it has some personal effect on their lives. But a majority of it is driven by some of the league's network partners, who have focused a lot more on the negatives of the league than the positives.
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“Before he left the league office,” Silver continued, “I think Joe Dumars said to me, ‘it's just a thing about the NBA.' It's just like it's part of the culture of the NBA that we're self-critical, it's part of the culture around the league to be looking at what's bad as opposed to what's good. I think it seeps into our coverage, quite honestly.
“I mean, maybe it's on the league office sometimes to maybe find better ways that we can be marketing our sport, but I've come to accept it.”
And none of these ratings discussions even include the video views from social media, which is how a huge percentage of NBA fans consume their content.
The NBA has generated a record 32 billion views across all social media platforms through the Conference Finals of the 2025 postseason, which is up 62 percent versus last year, according to Videocites.
And according to the league's data, Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had driven the most views of any player across NBA social media accounts through the Conference Finals, with 864 million views through the Conference Finals. Gilgeous-Alexander was also the seventh most viewed player on social media during the regular season, accruing 1.06 billion views.
“Maybe it comes from a time when earlier in the history of this league when the competition was dominated by a few teams,” Silver added. “And so then it became more of a part of the conversation that somehow it must be a bad thing for the league if one of those teams isn't competing. Obviously just to be very clear and intentional, I love what's happening right now. I've been an advocate for these changes. I think it's great that we have two so-called small markets competing, but I'm not even sure it's fair to describe them that way.
“I think we want a league ultimately where if you are a fan of the game of basketball, by definition, you're going to want to tune into the Finals because these are the best basketball that's being played. These are the two teams that have fought through a difficult and competitive and long regular season, fought through, got to essentially the fourth round, which is the Finals, and here they are. And so I don't want to complain too much about it because I'd rather people be talking about us than not talking about us, but I think it's just part of the culture of this league.”
Adam Silver on the unusual chatter around NBA ratings of late:
“On one hand, I like the fact that people are talking about us. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It seems a little unusual how much discussion there is around ratings in this league. I'm a fan of all… pic.twitter.com/wbDCMVM1AY
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) June 7, 2025
Ratings were reportedly down for Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals, but it was one of the most entertaining NBA Finals games in recent memory. Game 2 between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers is scheduled for Sunday night at 8:30PM EST.
