While the NBA held its own with college basketball Saturday night, it did not do particularly well.
Last Saturday’s Thunder/Spurs NBA regular season game scored a 1.7 final rating and 2.6 million viewers on ABC, up 42% in ratings and 38% in viewership from Rockets/Bulls the previous week (1.2, 1.9M) but down 47% and 52%, respectively, from Warriors/Thunder two weeks prior (3.2, 5.3M).
The Spurs’ win ranks ahead of only Rockets/Bulls as the lowest rated and least-watched NBA game ever on primetime broadcast television. Keep in mind that prior to this year, only a handful of regular season games had primetime exposure on a broadcast network.
Thus far, ABC’s NBA Saturday Primetime has been a low-to-middling draw. Five of the first six telecasts have had less than a 2.5 rating, the lone exception being the previously mentioned Warriors/Thunder game. Those numbers still compare favorably to last year’s 1 PM Sunday games, which the Saturday night franchise replaced.
Head-to-head, Saturday’s game drew the same rating as the North Carolina/Virginia ACC Tournament final on ESPN, but had a smaller audience (2.8M to 2.6M).
(Sat. numbers via Programming Insider)
