As was the case throughout the college basketball season, Zion Williamson continues to move the needle.
Tuesday’s NBA Draft Lottery earned 4.43 million viewers on ESPN, up 83% from last year, when the show was expanded to an hour (2.42M), and up 37% from 2017 (3.22M). Ratings were not immediately available.
The telecast ranks as the second-most watched Draft Lottery since it began airing as a standalone show in 2003. The 2003 lottery — which aired on ABC — holds the top spot with 6.0 million. No other lottery on ESPN has exceeded 3.55 million (2015).
The Draft Lottery would rank 15th out of the 67 NBA playoff games this year, and second out of the 74 Stanley Cup playoff games. No actual NBA Draft has ever earned as large an audience. Those comparisons come with a caveat — it is far easier to sustain a large audience over 30 minutes than over 2 1/2 or three hours.
In the young adult demographics, the telecast pulled a 1.7 rating in adults 18-49 (+70%), a 1.5 in adults 18-34 (+67%) and a 1.9 in adults 25-54 (+36%). It ranked second for the night on television in all three demos, behind only the Blazers-Warriors game that followed.
NBA Draft Lottery viewership chart
[Numbers from Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 5.15]
