President Donald Trump has mocked LeBron James after learning viewership for the game where he led the Los Angeles Lakers to their 17th NBA championship title may have been down as much as 70 percent this year.
With the pandemic sending professional basketball players into a Florida ‘bubble’ and audiences banned from the court due to social distancing measures, the 35-year-old star and his colleagues have attracted attention for kneeling over a Black Lives Matter decal and encouraging Americans to vote this forthcoming election.
But Trump – who has been embroiled in a bitter back-and-forth with the sports legend for years – appeared to hint that racial justice and political messaging at the games was doing the league no favors.
Sharing a link from right-wing outlet Breibart, titled ‘Viewership for NBA Finals Finale Crash Nearly 70%, Beaten by Random Sunday Night Football Game,’ the leader commented: ‘Maybe they were watching in China, but I doubt it. Zero interest!’
Trump mocked LeBron James on Monday as NBA Finals viewership this month dropped to 6 million after a pandemic hiatus compared to summer 2019 when 18.34 million watched
Trump, 74, commented about the game where LeBron, 35, led the Lakers to their 17th title: ‘Maybe they were watching in China, but I doubt it. Zero interest!’
LeBron James #23 of the Los Angeles Lakers, Anthony Davis #3 of the Los Angeles Lakers and Frank Vogel of the Los Angeles Lakers kneel during the National Anthem prior to the start of the game aMiami Heat in Game Six of the 2020 NBA Finals at AdventHealth Arena at the ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex on October 11, 2020 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida
China did in fact the air the game after a hiatus with a spokesperson for the China Media Group saying the NBA ‘has made active efforts in supporting the Chinese people in fighting against the novel coronavirus epidemic.’
The games were banned last fall following a dispute over a league manager showing support for Hong Kong protesters. The NBA estimated that it cost it hundreds of millions of dollars for the tweet, which stood by the pro-democracy protesters.
This year only about six million viewers tuned into the finals compared to triple (18.34 million) that number pre-pandemic.
The final last year was also several months earlier in June however the pandemic changed the schedule for 2020 leading to a clash with the ever dominating Sunday Night Football.
Sunday Night Football drew in double the figures as the Vikings lost against the Seahawks.
Trump – who boasted during the first presidential debate that he brought back football – tweeted 45 minutes after former President Barack Obama praised LeBron after he picked up his fourth NBA title.
‘Proud of my friend @KingJames for his fourth title, fourth Finals MVP, and for not only living up to the hype after seventeen seasons, but surpassing it as an extraordinary leader both on the court and in the public arena fighting for education, social justice, and our democracy,’ Obama wrote on Twitter on Monday.
Even Trump’s friend Tom Brady tweeted congratulations to LeBron after the 16-time All-Star became the first NBA player in history to claim the Finals MVP award with three different franchises on Sunday, after the Lakers defeated the Miami Heat 4-2 in the best-of-seven series.
‘Congrats to my brother @KingJames on winning his 4th championship. Not bad for a washed up old guy!’ tweeted 43-year-old six-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady.
The ratings flop on Friday came a day after an interview where Trump dropped the F-bomb in an interview with Rush Limbaugh. ‘The NBA has become so political that nobody cares about it anymore,’ Trump said and claimed he didn’t ‘even know who’s playing in the finals’
Trump tweeted 45 minutes after Barack Obama tweeted about his ‘friend,’ is work for education, democracy and social justice, as well as Sunday’s finals
NFL star Tom Brady also congratulated his ‘brother’ after he picked up his fourth NBA title
The drop in viewership came after Trump and his admin added political weight to the games by commenting on protests by players and on-court gestures.
In August, Trump said that it was ‘disgraceful’ that NBA players knelt during the national anthem to protest systemic racism, and added that, ‘what I do is personally turn off the game.’
After the president said he has done more for black people than any other leader, except for Lincoln who issued the emancipation proclamation, LeBron mocked Trump: ‘You trying to make me laugh right now? I appreciate that.’
He added in August: ‘I really don’t think the basketball community are sad about losing his viewership, him viewing the game. And that’s all I got to say.’
The new ratings flop came after an interview where Trump dropped the F-bomb while talking to Rush Limbaugh about matters including Iran and the NBA.
‘The NBA has become so political that nobody cares about it anymore,’ Trump said. ‘I don’t even know who’s playing in the finals,’ he said, on the night of a Game 5 of the series between James’ Lakers and the Miami Heat. ‘I don’t know anybody that’s watching the NBA.’
Last week, Trump suggested the sports legend – who expressed support for Hillary Clinton in 2016 – may be getting too much credit from those supporting racial equality.
‘LeBron is a spokesman for the Democratic party and a very nasty spokesman,’ Trump said. ‘I don’t know him, I never met him.
In August, Lebron hit back at Trump and said: ‘I really don’t think the basketball community are sad about losing his viewership, him viewing the game. And that’s all I got to say.’ He is pictured celebrating on Sunday
‘Because, again, I’ve done so much for the black community and people don’t wanna see that and he’s a great basketball player but people don’t wanna see a guy that way.
‘They don’t want to see that. We have enough difficulty during the week, you don’t wanna sit down watching a basketball game and then watch somebody that hates your guts, okay, He’s a hater.’
Trump went on to call the Black Lives Matter affirmation ‘a terrible term because it’s such a racist term.’
‘It’s a term that sows division between blacks and whites and everybody else. And it’s a very bad term, for blacks. But they were very angry. It’s a Marxist organization,’ he said.
After reports have suggested that Trump may have won the 2016 election by using voter suppression tactics, LeBron and other stars have been using their fame to encourage all to vote.
He tweeted Lyft thanking the ride-sharing company for ‘supporting our fight against voter suppression,’ and saying: ‘We must be heard!!!’
Some NBA fans who are also aware of his nonprofit More Than A Vote, which helps fight black voter suppression, may have also found themselves being unable to watch LeBron’s record-breaking performance last week.
LeBron has become more of a controversial figure for some after in response to the shooting death of African-American man Ahmaud Arbery by two white vigilantes in Georgia, he tweeted on May 6 that black people are ‘literally hunted.’ He has also spoken about how black people are scared in the current climate.
James tweeted in May that black people in the United States were being ‘literally hunted’
Candace Owens said the shooting of two LA sheriffs was ‘the natural result’ of James’s rhetoric
After two LAPD officers were shot several months later, conservative pundit Candace Owens blamed LeBron.
‘Why does this happen?’ Owens tweeted on September 13. ‘Because pea-brained celebrities that are idolized like @KingJames tell young black men that they are “literally being hunted”.
‘This is the natural result of such hyperbolic, dishonest rhetoric. The racist, anti-police, black lives matter LIE is to blame.’
LeBron denied the claim.
‘I’m not saying that all cops are bad,’ he continued. ‘I’m around them all the time and they are not all bad… But not one time have I ever said “let’s act violent towards cops.” I just said that what’s going on in our community is not okay, and we fear for that and we fear for our lives,’ the sportsman explained.
‘It’s something that we go on every single day as a black man and a black woman and a black kid and a black girl, we fear; we fear that moment where we are pulled over.’
In June, LeBron also called out Laura Ingraham on social media for what he perceived as the Fox News host’s hypocrisy for supporting Drew Brees’s right to political free speech as he criticized kneeling. On the contrary, she previously told LeBron and other black NBA players to ‘shut up and dribble.’
Ingraham’s stance has been one with which a significant section of sports fans agree.
The Trump-LeBron feud stems back to at least 2017 when LeBron claimed ‘he’s dividing us.’
‘What I noticed over the last few months that he’s kind of used sport to divide us but that’s something I can’t relate to because I know that Sports was the first time I was around someone that was white,’ he told CNN.
‘And I got an opportunity to see them and learn about them and we became very good friends. And I realized ‘this is all because of sports.’
Commenting on LeBron’s 2018 interview where he also spoke about founding a school in his home of Akron, Ohio, Trump tweeted hinting that he preferred Michael Jordan.
‘LeBron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon,’ he wrote. ‘He made LeBron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike!’
First Lady Melania issued a statement afterwards saying she would visit LeBron’s school under her charity Be Best.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham (left) said in 2018 that LeBron James and other black basketball players should ‘shut up and dribble’ rather than criticize President Donald Trump