The NBA season has gotten off to drastically different starts on TNT and ESPN.
Thunder/Warriors earned a 2.2 final rating and 3.8 million viewers on the NBA on TNT Thursday night, up 175% in ratings and 227% in viewership from Grizzlies/Blazers last year (0.8, 1.1M), up 144% and 171% respectively from Mavericks/Blazers in 2014 (0.9, 1.4M), and the best numbers of the young season. The previous highs were a 2.1 and 3.5 million for Spurs/Warriors on Opening Night.
Golden State’s win, which marked the first head-to-head matchup between former teammates Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, was the most-watched regular season NBA game on TNT since Lakers/Bulls on Christmas two years ago (4.0M).
Earlier in the night, Celtics/Cavaliers had 2.3 million viewers — up 39% from Thunder/Bulls last year (1.6M) and up 52% from Spurs/Rockets in 2014 (1.5M). TNT’s NBA viewership is up 40% through two weeks, with five of the network’s six telecasts up double-digits from last year.
Over on ESPN, the start of the season has been saddled by World Series competition. Facing Cubs/Indians Game 7 Wednesday night, the most-watched baseball game in 25 years (40.0M), ESPN’s doubleheader of Bulls/Celtics (810K) and Thunder/Clippers (947K) plummeted 65% and 67% respectively from last year’s comparable lineup of Knicks/Cavaliers (2.3M) and Clippers/Warriors (2.9M).
Against Game 3 of the series five nights earlier (19.4M), the network’s Cavaliers/Raptors game fell 22% from Heat/Cavaliers last year (from 1.8M to 1.4M), though trading Miami for non-Nielsen-rated Toronto may have had as big an impact as the competition. The Warriors/Pelicans nightcap dropped a tick in ratings (1.2 to 1.1) but eked out a 3% increase in viewership (from 1.8M to 1.9M) compared to Warriors/Rockets a year ago.
Not including this past Friday’s doubleheader, all six NBA telecasts on ESPN this season faced World Series competition — and each of those six posted a decline in ratings and/or viewership.
(Numbers via Programming Insider 11/4, 11/3, 10/29, Turner Sports PR/Twitter 11/4)
