Xiao Hua still hadn't realized how serious the situation was.
As far as he was concerned, the game hadn't started yet.
Once it began, the number of viewers would surely keep climbing.
Even if it didn't reach the same heights as the previous game, it should at least hit around 20 million, right?
Sure enough, once the game started, the numbers began shooting up.
10 million...
11 million...
12 million...
13 million...
At one point, they climbed to 19 million.
That put Xiao Hua somewhat at ease.
Maybe Wang Yi's absence wasn't having that much of an impact after all.
But by the end of the first quarter, the smile had vanished from his face, and his long, donkey-like face seemed to stretch even longer.
The numbers on his tablet had peaked at 19 million five minutes into the game, then started dropping rapidly.
17 million...
15 million...
10 million!
By the end of the first quarter, the number had already plunged to 7 million.
What did that mean?
Keep in mind that, for the viewership count, anyone who turned on the NBA broadcast and watched for more than a minute was counted.
In reality, fewer than one in ten viewers actually stuck around to watch the game.
Jordan once set a record of 35.89 million viewers, but fewer than 3 million actually watched from start to finish.
In recent years, with the rise of short-video platforms and the NBA becoming far less appealing after all its rule changes, the actual number of people watching the Finals was probably under a million.
Of the 7 million viewers now, the number actually watching was likely under 700,000.
Xiao Hua was starting to panic.
The NBA losing popularity meant fewer jersey sales and fewer merchandise sales, while advertising fees from its various