In a battle of high-profile basketball games, Heat/Thunder finished comfortably ahead of Duke/North Carolina Thursday night. In other news, Dwight Howard‘s return to Los Angeles failed to move the needle on ESPN, and Fox Sports 1 had a strong night thanks to NASCAR coverage.
Heat/Thunder Strong Despite Olympics, Duke/UNC
- Thursday’s Heat/Thunder NBA regular season game drew 3.8 million viewers on TNT, up 57% from Heat/Bulls last year (2.4M), but down 25% from Knicks/Heat in 2012 (5.1M). The game earned the sixth-largest NBA audience of the season, with the teams’ first meeting in January ranking fifth (3.9M). Heat/Thunder easily topped the rescheduled Duke/North Carolina college basketball game on ESPN by 68% (3.8M to 2.3M), but was no match for primetime coverage of the Olympics on NBC (20.3M). (Thu. numbers from The Futon Critic)
Not Much Interest in Howard’s Return to L.A.
- ESPN earned just 1.3 million viewers for the Rockets/Lakers game Wednesday night, which featured the return of former Lakers C Dwight Howard to Los Angeles. Viewership declined 43% from Celtics/Lakers last year (2.3M) and 50% from Lakers/Mavericks in 2012 (2.6M). A substantially larger audience watched the Rockets play the Warriors on TNT the following night (2.0M). (Wed. numbers from The Futon Critic)
“Fox Sports Live” Sets Record Thanks to NASCAR Lead-In
- The Thursday night edition of “Fox Sports Live” earned 2.3 million viewers on FS1, easily the largest audience in the brief history of the show, and the third-largest audience on FS1 since the network rebranded from Speed Channel last August. The lead-in program, NASCAR’s Duel at Daytona, had 3.1 million viewers — the second-largest audience since the rebrand, and the largest audience for the event since 2000. (Fox Sports)
