In clearing the Warriors’ path to a third straight NBA Finals, Zaza Pachulia made the Western Conference Finals a lot less interesting.
Tuesday’s Spurs-Warriors NBA West Finals Game 2 scored a 3.5 final rating and 5.8 million viewers on ESPN, down 26% in ratings and 24% in viewership from Thunder-Warriors on TNT last year (4.7, 7.6M), down 20% and 16% respectively from Rockets-Warriors on ESPN in 2015 (4.4, 6.9M), and the lowest rated game of the Western Conference Finals since Spurs-Grizzlies Game 4 in 2013 (3.2).
The Warriors’ easy win also delivered the third-smallest WCF audience since that 2013 series (20 telecasts).
Compared to last year’s Eastern Conference Finals on ESPN, which included a Canadian team, ratings were flat and viewership increased 5% (from 5.5M) for Raptors-Cavaliers.
The game scored a 2.2 rating in adults 18-49, down 29% from last year’s West Finals Game 2 (3.1) and flat compared to Game 2 of last year’s East Finals on ESPN. It was the night’s top program on all of television in the demo, comfortably topping second-place finishers NCIS on CBS and The Voice on NBC (1.5).
It had a 2.1 rating in adults 18-34, down 30% from last year’s WCF (3.0) and flat compared to last year’s ECF.
(Tue. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 5.17, with additional info from Son of the Bronx)
