The Warriors and Cavaliers look vulnerable this year, admittedly to differing degrees, but the two dominant teams of the post-Heatles era still drive NBA TV ratings.
Golden State’s win was the least-watched game between the rivals since January 2015 (11 telecasts), when a Friday night matchup on ESPN had 1.7 million. At the same time, it snapped a streak of eight straight declines on ESPN/ABC and TNT.
Later in the night, Spurs-Clippers had a 0.7 (-42%) and 1.0 million (-46%). Last year’s comparable window featured the Warriors.
On TNT Thursday night, Wizards-Cavaliers drew a 1.15 and 1.7 million — up 35% in ratings and 34% in viewership from last year (Celtics-Hawks: 0.85, 1.3M) and up 7% and 12% respectively from 2016 (Bulls-Heat: 1.1, 1.6M).
Only one other game posted an increase this week, Thursday’s T’Wolves-Nuggets nightcap. That had a 0.7 and 1.1 million (+4%).
In other action, ESPN drew a 0.9 (-36%) and 1.294 million (-40%) for Celtics-Raptors on Wednesday night, with the Spurs-Lakers nightcap scoring a 0.9 (flat) and 1.287 million (+0.4%). ESPN figures include streaming viewership and are compared to previous TV-only numbers.
Entering the final week of the season, NBA games are now averaging 1.90 million viewers across ESPN, ABC and TNT — up 8% from last year (1.77M) but down 1% from 2015-16 (1.91M). The averages are based on publicly available NBA Nielsen data that is often adjusted after-the-fact, meaning the numbers may be slightly higher than reported here.
