A possible NBA Finals preview was not much of a draw on ABC’s NBA Saturday Primetime.
Saturday’s Spurs/Cavaliers NBA regular season game earned a 2.1 final rating and 3.3 million viewers on ABC, down 13% in ratings and 15% in viewership from Bulls/Cavaliers the previous week (2.4, 3.9M). Viewership peaked at 4.0 million from 10:30-10:45 PM ET, down from the previous week’s peak of 4.5 million.
The 2.1 rating is the lowest for a primetime NBA game on broadcast television in at least 20 years, though it should be noted that stretch includes only nine non-Christmas regular season games.
Head-to-head, the Cavaliers’ win topped the UFC on FOX by margins of 31% in ratings (2.1 to 1.6), 24% in viewership (3.3M to 2.7M) and 20% among adults 18-49 (1.2 to 1.0). It also topped the Kentucky/Kansas college basketball game on ESPN, which had a 1.8, 2.9 million and a 0.8 in the demo.
Locally, the game scored a 17.7 rating in Cleveland and a 13.7 in San Antonio.
(Sat. numbers from ESPN, with additional info via Programming Insider)
