The second season of ABC’s Saturday night NBA package got off to a decent enough start.
Spurs/Cavaliers had a 2.2 final rating and 3.6 million viewers on ABC’s NBA Saturday Primetime over the weekend, down 8% in ratings and viewership from Bulls/Cavaliers last year, which marked the debut of the series (2.4, 3.9M). Compared to last year’s Saturday Primetime game between the same teams, which aired one week later in the season, ratings inched up from a 2.1 and viewership rose 9% from 3.3 million.
The Spurs’ overtime win delivered the sixth-largest NBA audience of the season on any network, and the third-largest excluding Christmas Day. Of the sixteen most-watched games this season, all-but-two have involved the Cavaliers or Warriors.
The NBA topped Saturday’s other primetime sporting events, not that the competition was particularly bruising. Competing coverage of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships had a 1.8 and 2.8 million on NBC, and the Miami/Duke college basketball game scored a 0.9 and 1.4 million on ESPN.
Notably, a middle-of-the-night replay of the game had a 0.3 rating and 539,000 viewers on ESPN — flat in ratings but up 21% in viewership from last year. The encore likely benefited from the close nature of the game.
(Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 1/24)
