If not on the court, Kevin Durant‘s return to Oklahoma City lived up to the hype in the ratings.
Warriors/Thunder scored a 4.1 overnight rating on ABC’s NBA Saturday Primetime last night, the highest for any NBA regular season game outside of the Christmas holiday in four years — since Lakers/Heat on ABC in February 2013 (5.0). There was no game on the comparable weekend last year, which featured All-Star festivities on TNT.
Including Christmas, Golden State’s comfortable win ranks second for the season behind their Christmas Day loss to the Cavaliers (5.9).
Compared to last year’s Saturday Primetime game between the Warriors and Thunder, an overtime thriller that took place two weeks later in the season, overnights increased 5% from a 3.9. That was despite this year’s peak rating — a 4.7 from 11-11:15 PM ET — falling nearly a full-point short of last year’s mark (5.6 from 11:15-11:30 PM).
Saturday’s game scored a 19.5 rating in Oklahoma City, the market’s highest for a regular season game on ESPN/ABC since 2012, and a 14.3 in the Bay Area.
(Sat. numbers from ESPN)
