rewrite this title Golden Age: A What LeBron James-Stephen Curry Pairing Could Mean For The NBA’s TV Ratings

Massive interest in the Knicks’ magical title run sent this year’s TV ratings soaring to a multi-decade high, with ABC and ESPN averaging 20.6 million viewers for the Finals.

Pop quiz: When was the last time the NBA Finals averaged 20 million viewers?

It was in 2017, when they hit 20.38 million. And in 2016, when an average of 20.28 million watched. Before that, you have to go back 28 years to find a game that broke the 20 million mark.

What made 2017 and 2016 so special is that they represented a clash between the two biggest stars in the league, players who literally changed the game: LeBron James and Stephen Curry. 2015 and 2018 also scratched toward the 20 million mark, with 19.94 million and 17.56 million average viewers, respectively. They also were clashes between James’ Cleveland Cavaliers and Curry’s Golden State Warriors.

The through line in this is that the pairing of LeBron James and Stephen Curry is ratings gold. And now, with James declining to resign with the Lakers, there are reports he could be headed to Golden State to team with Curry. And it’s not just wishful thinking.

Earlier this year on his podcast The Shop, James tackled the topic of which player he’d still like to play with before he retires.

“Steph Curry is the one that I want to play with, for sure,” he said. “I love everything about that guy. Lethal. When he gets out of his car, you better guard him from the moment he pulls up to the arena.”

The two, of course, won a gold medal together at the Olympics, so they have some sense of what teaming up would be like, with Curry taking over the final game and putting the game away for Team U.S.A.

And according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, “The Golden State Warriors had formed a grand plan going into this offseason to former a duo of LeBron James and (his former Laker teammate) Anthony Davis to join Stephen Curry and Draymond Green.”

So what would LeBron-Curry pairing mean for ratings?

“I mean, you talk about box office appeal,” enthused Stephen A. Smith on his SiriusXM show yesterday as the rumors heated up. “Do you understand that the combination of LeBron James with Steph Curry, what that would mean for box office, what that would mean for ratings, what that would mean for the popularity of the NBA brand, not just nationwide, not just in the states, but globally?”

The duo would likely boost not just the Warriors’ ratings, but those of every team they play. It could potentially bring back fans that the league has lost since those golden ratings years of 2016 and 2017, simply because James and Curry are still probably the two best-known current NBA players on earth.

For the NBA, it would assure them another very high-profile Christmas Day game (maybe against Victor Wembanyama?) and a boost in the playoffs should the Warriors make it that far. That would be welcome given the league is entering its second year of an 11-year $76 billion media rights deal with NBCUniversal, Amazon Prime Video and Disney/ESPN.

Beyond the storyline of those two players — whose games fit together like chocolate and peanut butter — finally playing together in the league after being competitors, this could be the 41-year-old James’ last year in the NBA. (Curry, at 38, is no spring chicken himself.) It could be akin to Kobe Bryant’s farewell tour in his final season, with tribute videos, pageantry and homage paid by the league’s rising stars. Except, unlike with Bryant, you’d have a team that, on any given night, could be electrifying with Curry’s all-time-great shooting and James’ still-formidable playmaking and rim running.

That, as Stephen A says, would be “box office.”