With a veritable all-star team of talent sitting out, Warriors-Spurs did about as well as one would expect.
Warriors-Spurs scored a 1.5 final rating and 2.5 million viewers on ABC’s NBA Saturday Primetime last weekend, down 12% in ratings and 5% in viewership from Thunder-Spurs last year (1.7, 2.6M). Compared to the teams’ Saturday Primetime meeting last year, which aired opposite the NCAA Tournament, ratings fell 52% from a 3.1 and viewership 53% from 5.2 million.
Keep in mind last year’s Warriors-Spurs game included all of the major stars, while Saturday’s matchup lacked Stephen Curry, Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Tony Parker and LaMarcus Aldridge — each of whom did not play due to injury or rest. Including Andre Iguodala, who was also held out of play, a whopping five regular season or NBA Finals MVPs missed the game.
Given the circumstances, the game held up fairly well. The Spurs’ blowout win was actually the most-watched edition of NBA Saturday Primetime since Warriors-Thunder a month earlier (3.4, 6.1M), topping the previous week’s Clippers-Bulls game by 36% in ratings (1.5 to 1.1) and 46% in viewership (2.5M to 1.7M) and edging Bulls-Cavaliers two weeks earlier — a game that was missing LeBron James but otherwise featured several all stars (2.45M to 2.44M).
It also held up well compared to Bulls-Celtics the following day, which had a mere 1.1 and 1.7 million — down 31% in ratings and a third in viewership from Clippers-Cavaliers last year (1.6, 2.5M) and down 39% and 37% respectively from Rockets-Clippers in 2015 (1.8, 2.7M).
The 1.1 tied the third-lowest NBA rating ever on broadcast television, matching Clippers-Bulls the previous week and a pair of games in 2004. Only Rockets-Wizards in 2015 and Suns-Kings in 2007 managed a lower rating (1.0). The Bulls have now played in a third of the nine lowest rated NBA games ever on broadcast, more than any other team.
Head-to-head, both ABC games this weekend were trounced head-to-head by competing college basketball action — the ACC Tournament final on Saturday (2.0, 3.6M) and the Big Ten title game on Sunday (2.3, 3.6M). In a rarity, ABC’s Sunday game was not the top NBA telecast of the day, trailing Cavaliers-Rockets on ESPN in primetime (1.5, 2.3M).
(Wknd. numbers from ESPN, ShowBuzz Daily 3.16)
