John Kosner Spoke With Hannah Miller of Bloomberg About the Ratings Potential of the Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals

Original Article: Bloomberg, by Hannah Miller, June 3rd, 2026

Wemby, hungry Knicks fans to propel NBA Finals to ratings highs

The New York Knicks reaching the NBA Finals for the first time this century and facing emerging superstar Victor Wembanyama promises to become one of the most-watched championships in league history.

With a team from the biggest US media market, whose fans are hungry for their first championship since 1973, the Finals will be a “ratings bonanza,” according to John Kosner, a sports media consultant and former executive with the league and ESPN.

Ratings will be more juiced, Kosner said, by Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 center, whose San Antonio Spurs beat the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder. The Finals begin Wednesday night in Texas.

Not since LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers met Stephen Curry’s Golden State Warriors in four straight Finals starting in 2015 has there been this much media anticipation for the championship series.

Walt Disney Co. will broadcast the Finals on ABC, which has carried them for more than two decades, and stream them over its ESPN app.

“It’s going to be vital viewing,” according to Jonathan Miller, a former NBA executive and chief executive officer of Integrated Media, which specializes in digital investments. The Spurs, who outlasted the Thunder in seven games, are more likely to boost ratings as the Knicks’ narrative of longtime losers on the brink of redemption dovetails with that of the Wembanyama-led Spurs’ talented young squad vying to establish their own legacy.

In his second season, the 22-year-old Wembanyama is making a case to be the next face of the league, Kosner said. His unique mix of size and skill — he’s the league’s best shot-blocker while also a skilled shooter and ballhandler — has led him to be nicknamed “The Alien.”

The NBA has long needed a young talent to fill that role as James and Curry near the end of their careers. Meanwhile, younger stars haven’t reached their level for a variety of reasons, including off-the-court woes and postseason debacles.

That’s left the league in a lull after the Cavaliers-Warriors rivalry, with disappointing playoff ratings in recent seasons. The NBA has thrived on dynasties led by superstars. In the 1980s, Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics and Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers dominated. They gave way to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls of the 1990s. James and Curry followed.

Wembanyama, who is French, will also help the league’s international expansion. The NBA already has millions of fans overseas and is in the early stages of starting a European league. The Spurs have played in Paris and have more games coming next season. Amazon Prime will stream the Finals in France this year.

The Knicks have their own superstar in Jalen Brunson, a crafty 6-foot-2 guard who could make a claim on being the league’s biggest star by leading New York to its first title in more than 50 years. The team is rolling, having won 11 playoff games in a row, including a sweep of Cleveland in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Big ratings in the Finals would cap off a strong season for the league and help justify the 11-year, $76-billion media rights deal it signed with Disney, Amazon and Comcast Corp. in 2024.

During the regular season, the NBA had its best viewership since 2018, averaging 1.78 million viewers per game in a 16% increase from last season, when the league counted Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s TNT network as a major media partner.

Disney has “high expectations” that the championship will continue this upward trend in viewership, according to Nick Dawson, senior vice president of programming and acquisitions at ESPN.

Dawson said that season ratings for games involving the Knicks were up around 25% year-over-year on Disney’s networks. The matchup against Wembanyama and the Spurs will hopefully make for a longer, more competitive series than the Eastern Conference Finals, he said.

The Finals also present a major opportunity for ESPN’s app, which it rolled out in August as a $30-a-month service for watching live sports and engaging with the network’s betting and fantasy offerings. Dawson said that the app further helps “make the games available to fans wherever and however they choose to consume them.”

Ticket demand across both markets has pushed prices into uncharted territory, with Knicks-Spurs tracking to become the most expensive NBA Finals ever. The series opens in San Antonio, where the average ticket price is about $2,800 for game one and roughly $3,500 for game two, according to SeatGeek.

When the Finals shift to Madison Square Garden, prices surge. The average ticket for game three is about $6,700, while game four is nearly $5,400. Last year’s Super Bowl had an average ticket price of roughly $7,200.

“There’s no real precedent to this type of demand and an NBA Finals basketball game,” said Oliver Marvin, senior director of finance at SeatGeek, adding that these prices have “a lot more room to grow.”