The final game of Warriors-Rockets hit a seven-year viewership high.
Friday’s Warriors-Rockets NBA semifinal Game 6 earned 7.33 million viewers on ESPN, up 72% from Celtics-Wizards in a similar window two years ago (4.26M). There was no comparable game last year. Ratings were not immediately available.
Golden State’s series-clinching win ranks as the most-watched first or second round NBA playoff game on any network in seven years. That year, Lakers-Thunder Game 5 had 8.15 million on TNT. It was the top first or second round game on ESPN since Game 3 of that same Thunder-Lakers series (7.38M).
The Warriors-Rockets series generated three of the four largest early round audiences since 2012. Game 1 ranks second (7.26M) and Game 3 fourth (7.23M). The lone exception was Game 4 of another Warriors-Rockets series in 2016 (7.24M). Overall, this year’s matchup delivered five of the top nine.
Game 6 pulled a 2.6 rating in adults 18-49, easily winning the night on television. It ranks second among all playoff games thus far, behind Game 5 (2.75).
In other action, Sunday’s Sixers-Raptors Game 7 earned a 5.0 overnight rating on TNT, down 7% from the previous semifinal Game 7 on the network, Wizards-Celtics two years ago (5.4). The 2017 game aired on a Monday night. The Raptors’ buzzer-beating win aired in an earlier timeslot than usual to avoid competition with HBO’s exhaustively-hyped “Game of Thrones.”
A generation ago, Game 7 of the 2001 Raptors-Sixers semifinal had an 8.9 on NBC.
Earlier in the day, Blazers-Nuggets had a 4.8 overnight on ABC — up 9% from the previous semifinal Game 7 on that network, Heat-Raptors in 2016 (4.4). Versus the same window last year, Cavaliers-Celtics in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, overnights fell 11% from a 5.4.
ESPN/ABC averaged a 4.2 overnight rating for second round playoff games, up 20% from last year (3.5), up 24% from 2017 (3.4), and the networks’ highest average since 2012. Full averages for the second round, and the postseason as a whole, were not immediately available.
Locally, Sixers-Raptors had a 17.6 rating in Philadelphia, the market’s highest on record for an Sixers game on TNT. Blazers-Nuggets had a 19.9 in Portland, the market’s highest for an NBA game on ABC since 2003. Toronto does not count toward U.S. television ratings and figures in Denver were not immediately available.
[Numbers from Nielsen via ShowBuzz Daily 5.13, Sports Business Daily 5.13, ESPN PR 5.13]
