Someone needs to call WWE star Danhausen to uncurse ESPN.
The very nice, very evil character has been a pop culture hit since joining WWE because of his comedic “curses.” And when he uncursed the New York Knicks on First Take after a bit with Stephen A. Smith, the team has gone on to a 3-0 series lead against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Unfortunately for ESPN, it looks like the Knicks are set to sweep the Cavaliers while the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs are playing an epic Western Conference Finals on NBC that looks set to go seven games. That’s just bad luck, right?
Then what about what’s happening in the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs that ESPN is also televising? On Sunday night, the Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Colorado Avalanche to also take a 3-0 lead in their Western Conference Finals series. The Knights will have a chance to sweep the Avs in Game 4 of their series. Meanwhile, the Eastern Conference Finals on TNT have the Montreal Canadiens tied 1-1 with the Carolina Hurricanes heading into Game 3 in Montreal.
ESPN could conceivably see both of their NHL and NBA conference finals go to the minimum, while their partners see their conference finals series go the distance. Not only is it a bummer for ESPN from a coverage and excitement standpoint, but it’s also a huge financial and viewership blow as well. ESPN will lose out on some of its largest audiences of the season for both sports and the massive ad sales that come along with it. Instead of audiences of several million fans watching must-see playoff games, raking in enormous sponsorship opportunities, the network will be stuck with documentary reruns and the best of whatever other live sports they can find.
But what really has to burn the folks in Bristol is that this is nothing new with their conference finals experience, especially when it comes to their many years in partnership with the NBA.
On the NBA side, there have been four sweeps in the last ten years in the conference finals. They are 2017, 2019, and 2023 in the Western Conference and 2024 in the Eastern Conference. Incredibly, all four of those conference finals sweeps have aired on ESPN. In those years, the other conference final series that aired on the opposite network on TNT went five, five, six, and seven games respectively. The only good news for ESPN is that they have had a few series go seven games in that timespan, but they have definitely drawn the short end of the stick. And now with NBC airing the Thunder-Spurs series, they are drawing audiences of over 10 million viewers, which is an incredible number for an NBA conference finals series.
Thankfully for ESPN, the reverse has actually been true on the NHL side. Since ESPN re-entered the hockey universe in 2021, TNT has televised the only two sweeps in the conference finals (2022 Western Conference, 2023 Eastern Conference). However, the NHL has not seen any conference final series go to seven games since the 2018 Eastern Conference series between the Lightning and Capitals.
If you’re looking at which series might give ESPN some good luck in extending into profitability, the Avalanche have a much better chance than the Cavaliers. Colorado won the Presidents’ Trophy with the best regular-season point total in the NHL and dominated the postseason until it ran into Vegas. While an NHL team has pulled off a 3-0 comeback four times in Stanley Cup Playoffs history, it has famously never happened in the NBA. As much as Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson may believe differently, their chances of coming back against the Knicks are about as good as Shedeur Sanders leading the Browns to the Super Bowl.
Unless the conference finals curse is broken soon, ESPN could be looking at a lot of dead airtime where they were hoping to air some of their most valuable inventory all year.
About Matt Yoder