NBA Finals: OKC mayor takes umbrage with small-market label surrounding Thunder-Pacers: ‘We’re the big city to most Americans’

NBA Finals don’t get much more small-market than this.

But don’t tell that to Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt. He doesn’t want to hear it.

The NBA Finals tip off Thursday (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) with the Oklahoma City Thunder hosting the Indiana Pacers. The basketball between a pair of high-octane teams with contrasting styles promises to be exciting.

But much has been made on the internet about the absence of a big-city presence in a Finals that doesn’t feature New York, Los Angeles, Toronto or Chicago or even a mid-sized market like Miami or Denver.

Oklahoma City and Indianapolis are small markets by any measure when it comes to to professional sports and TV eyeballs, which is what the discussion here is about. But Holt has a different perspective.

“There are 19,500 cities, towns and villages in America, and we’re bigger than all but 19 of them,” Holt said recently, per Sports Business Journal. “OK? You think we’re a small market? Well, there’s 19,480 cities who think we’re a big market.”

Holt then engaged in a bit of middle-America vs. coastal elite culture warring while standing up for his city.

“Ninety percent of Americans live in a smaller place than Oklahoma City,” Holt continued. “They’re not looking at this and going, ‘You know what — that city’s not big enough for me to care.’ That’s a New York media-centric narrative. We’re the big city to most Americans.”

Holt’s math is a little off. A lot off, actually. The majority of Americans live in those big cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas. That’s the nature of big cities being, well, big. Cities are where large groups of people live.

But Holt also has a point. There’s been a significant amount of chatter around a perceived lack of interest in these NBA Finals because the cities the teams represent are relatively small compared to their NBA counterparts. Should it really matter?

There are many ways to count population and rank cities in terms of size. By a measure noted here citing TV market size — which is the most relevant issue in play here — Indianapolis ranks 22nd out of 28 markets that host NBA teams. Oklahoma city is 26th. Only New Orleans and Memphis are smaller.

But the big question here, is why should that matter to basketball fans? It’s almost certain that an NBA Finals featuring New York or Los Angeles would generate more eyeballs and, therefore, more revenue. But that’s an issue for the network and league accountants to worry about.

For fans of basketball, the Thunder and Pacers give them plenty of reasons to tune in. They’ll also provide Oklahoma City and Indianapolis a chance to show what they’ve got.