Did Clay also give the reason why? NBA League Pass has millions of subscribers that watch their favorite teams play. ESPN and TNT has been hurt by this scenario.
Comparing the most watched Finals ever to the COVID year
Official viewer numbers have dropped some over time since the late 90s peak, but this is just plain old cherry picking, recency bias, and hoping no one does their own research. Viewership was actually pretty good pre-COVID and mass streaming/StreamEast pirating.
If you go to post-Jordan/3-peat you'll see 16mm viewership in 1999. Since then they've failed to go over 16mm up until COVID:
2002
2003
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2014
2019
I'd say the down years happened 23 years ago. The 2010s were solid, the 2000s not so much. Clearly there's been a reset since COVID, especially with the NBA having one of the younger fanbases. Global popularity helps boster bottom line regardless.