You got the sense he’d rather stick his arm in a tractor blade than sit for hair and makeup. His personality didn’t exactly “pop” on screen. Meanwhile, Larry was Larry the down-home, no-nonsense, blue-collared country boy, and on the surface you might assume that placed a lower ceiling over his impact as a TV pitchman. MJ was larger than life on his way to becoming basketball’s first global icon. From a marketing perspective, Magic embodied the flash and glamour of Los Angeles. But first, four hours of Fresh Off the Boat and The Goldbergs!” Anyway by 1987, when Larry and Magic met in the Finals for the third time in four years, ratings had soared to 15.9, and they remained consistent through the Jordan years, peaking in ’98 (MJ’s last title) with a still-record 18.7.īut while Larry, Magic and ultimately Michael put the NBA on their shoulders, they were diverging personalities who represented very different things. Can you imagine that today? “At 2:30 am, stay tuned for Game 6 of the NBA Finals right here on ABC. CBS opted to broadcast them on tape delay. In both cases the games weren’t even shown live. When Larry won his first title in ‘81, ratings dipped to a then-record low 6.7. Case in point: When Magic won his first title in ‘80, the NBA Finals scored an 8.0 in the Nielsen ratings. Here in 2016, you’re well aware that Larry Bird and Magic Johnson basically saved basketball in the 1980s.
