Can These NBA Finals Make the Grade?

Maybe this isn’t a glamorous NBA Finals featuring big names with big mouths and unique viewpoints. The Detroit Pistons and San Antonio Spurs simply play good team basketball.

Is that good enough?

Even though Game 7 of the Miami-Detroit series on TNT was the most-watched NBA playoff game on cable -- 6.75 million households tuned in -- playoff ratings are off from a year ago, when the Laker soap opera generated high drama going into the Finals.

ABC went into the Finals averaging a 3.4 Nielsen rating for nine playoff telecasts, down from a 4.6 for six playoff telecasts last year.

The NBA is doing what it can to spruce things up -- bringing in such people as Stevie Wonder, Will Smith, Alanis Morissette and Kelly Clarkson to entertain. Clarkson will sing the national anthem for Game 2 via satellite from the Persian Gulf, where she is on a USO tour to entertain U.S. troops.

The idea is to draw more viewers. The Disney entry of ABC and ESPN pays $400 million a year to broadcast the NBA, and is looking for a return on its money.

But ABC isn’t complaining.

“We’re bullish about our relationship with the NBA,” said George Bodenheimer, the president of ABC Sports and ESPN. “Now three years in [on a six-year contract], we are very pleased.”

What makes Bodenheimer so upbeat is that the NBA provides quality entertainment for all the ABC-ESPN media outlets -- English television, Spanish-language television, radio, Internet and, coming soon, cell phones.

Another big plus with the NBA is that it is such a global sport. During the regular season, the NBA provided more than 36,000 hours of programming to 214 countries in 43 languages, reaching a potential audience of 3.1 billion. And there are 42 international telecasters on site for the Finals.

In a Different League

Bodenheimer may be high on the NBA, but not the NHL. ESPN last week declined to pick up the one-year, $60-million option for the 2005-2006 NHL season, if there is one.

“If they come back with a new offer, we’ll listen,” Bodenheimer said. “But I don’t anticipate us carrying hockey.”

NBA, It’s Everywhere

ESPN’s supplemental NBA Finals programming includes special SportsCenter editions from game sites, nightly “NBA Fastbreak” programs, plenty of interactive coverage on ESPN.com, and more.

ESPN Classic will air 31 hours of classic NBA Finals games, beginning Saturday at 9 a.m. with Game 2 in 1984 between the Lakers and Boston Celtics.

NBA TV, covering its sixth Finals, has more than 100 hours of supplemental coverage planned.

Spike TV has a six-episode NBA Entertainment-produced series, “NBA Rookies,” which makes its debut tonight at 9. The series focuses not only on current rookies, but also veterans and what they had to go through when they first entered the NBA.

Also, ABC has lined up some excellent halftime features. Thursday night, the Spurs’ Manu Ginobili was profiled, and upcoming is a feature on the Spurs’ Bruce Bowen. The former Cal State Fullerton star is an amazing story, having grown up in a tough part of Fresno and being estranged from his biological mother and father. Bowen is not a big name in the NBA, but if you’ve ever heard him interviewed -- he is a favorite of Jim Rome -- you know he could be the league’s poster boy for how a player should conduct himself.

No Time for Confetti

Wild things often happen in the Arena Football League, but it’s doubtful anything could top what took place in the American Conference championship game between the Colorado Crush and Chicago Rush last Sunday.

On what appeared to be the final play of the game, a Crush player intercepted a pass that would have sealed a victory, and confetti flew everywhere. Only problem was, there was a penalty on the play, giving Chicago a chance to kick a tying field goal and send the game into overtime, which it did. Clearing away the confetti turned out to be quite a project.

The Crush won in overtime and will meet the Georgia Force in the Arena Bowl championship game Sunday at noon at Las Vegas. NBC will televise the game, with Tom Hammond and Pat Haden announcing.

Don’t’ expect to see any confetti this time.

Short Waves

It will be a busy weekend for Hammond. He will serve as host of NBC’s Belmont coverage Saturday, then catch a flight to Las Vegas.

Making its debut on FSN Sunday at 4 p.m. will be “CMI: Chris Myers Interview.” Myers’ first subject is Jose Canseco. Despite all the exposure for Canseco lately, this interview is worth a look.

In Closing

“Undisputed,” a DVD chronicling USC’s 2004 football season, is now available at the USC bookstore and online at usctrojans.com and uscbookstore.com. The cost is $24.95. Executive producer Dennis Kirkpatrick and his crew were given great access, and there are a lot of candid locker-room shots featuring Coach Pete Carroll at his best.

“I cringe just thinking about all that’s in there,” Carroll said. “It’s pretty personal stuff. And we cut a lot out.”