The holiday weekend brought feast and famine for the NBA.
Cavaliers/Warriors scored 4.5 million viewers on the NBA on TNT Monday night, up 25% from the same matchup last year (3.6M), up 153% from Bulls/Cavaliers in 2015 (1.8M) and the most-watched NBA regular season game on cable in more than three years — since Bulls/Heat on opening night of the 2013-14 season (5.4M). Ratings were not immediately available.
For the season, the Warriors’ blowout win ranks as the third-most watched game on any network — trailing the teams’ first meeting of the season on ABC Christmas Day (10.1M) and the Bulls/Spurs matchup that followed (5.5M).
The Warriors have now played in four of the six most-watched games this season, with three of those being blowouts — their 35-point rout of the Cavaliers, their 26-point rout of the Thunder in November (3.8M), and the 29-point drubbing they took from the Spurs on Opening Night (3.5M). Of the 13 most-watched NBA games this season, the Warriors or Cavaliers have played in all-but-two.
In the nightcap, Thunder/Clippers had 1.7 million viewers — up 8% from Rockets/Clippers last year (1.6M) and up 42% from Lakers/Suns in 2015 (1.2M).
Over on ESPN, the results were not nearly as good. Sunday’s Bulls/Grizzlies special had just 377,000 viewers opposite the rescheduled Steelers/Chiefs NFL playoff game (37.1M), the smallest audience for the NBA on ESPN/ABC or TNT since at least the 2009-10 season. The previous low over that span was 442,000 for Rockets/Bobcats on ESPN2 in 2010.
Going back to last Friday night, Celtics/Hawks had a 0.8 (flat) and 1.2 million (-6%) and Pistons/Jazz a 0.7 (-46%) and 1.1 million (-45%).
(Numbers from ShowBuzz Daily 1/18a, 1/18b; Programming Insider 1/18)
