What's good for the San Antonio Spurs is not necessarily good for the National Basketball Association.
The 2003 NBA champion Spurs have set the stage for another win ? this time in the money game. Four series of six games each meant 12 home-court sellouts in the new SBC Center, compared to the eight home games during the 1999 championship run.

Spurs Chairman Peter Holt said the team will make money this year and he expects the championships will lead to greater sponsorship dollars. For owners of the team, that's good news. Holt said the team has two years to pay down about $40 million of the $90 million debt racked up during years of limited income playing in the Alamodome and paying for a portion of the new arena.

But sports marketing experts know that the TV networks carrying the game and the NBA silently root for TV ratings monsters such as the Los Angeles Lakers or New York Knicks to go deep into the playoffs.

ABC paid $2.4 billion in a six-year deal to air games on the network and its cable sister network ESPN. Another $2.2 billion came from TNT. For that much money ? a 25 percent increase from the previous contracts ? the networks want winning ratings to generate higher advertising revenue.

But the sixth and final game of the Spurs' battle with the New Jersey Nets only had about 16 percent of that night's U.S. viewers tuning in, according to the overnight Nielsen ratings. In the San Antonio market, 65 percent of TV watchers that night were tuned in to watch the home team.

By comparison, the final match between the Lakers and the Indianapolis Pacers in 2000 picked up 28 percent of the nation's viewers.

Meanwhile, ABC Sports Vice President Mark Mandel said the network is still pleased with winning its time slot and is not overly concerned about the small-market team win.