NBA restart viewership has now slipped under the league’s pre-hiatus average. Plus: the NHL is generating some of its top cable audiences this season; Major League Baseball has seen better days on FOX and ESPN.
NBA viewership slips under pre-hiatus average
The first full week of the NBA season restart averaged 1.56 million viewers across ESPN, ABC and TNT, down 4% from the league’s pre-hiatus average (1.62M). Viewership had been trending 14% above average through Monday. Primetime viewership (1.68M) remains 11% ahead of the pre-hiatus average.
On Thursday, TNT averaged 1.60 million for Lakers-Rockets, 1.06 million for Clippers-Mavericks and 592,000 for Heat-Bucks. The Heat-Bucks game — TNT’s earliest weekday game in recent memory, not counting holidays — ranks as the least-watched on ESPN, ABC or TNT this season.
In other action, ESPN averaged 1.19 million for Thunder-Lakers and 1.02 million for Nets-Celtics on Wednesday, and TNT scored 1.56 million for Rockets-Blazers and 981,000 for Celtics-Heat on Tuesday. After nine of the first ten games averaged at least 1.3 million viewers, only three of the subsequent nine have reached that mark.
Keep in mind that all nationally televised games since the season restarted have coexisted with local RSN telecasts, and that primetime television viewing in August is traditionally lower than in the NBA’s usual months of operation.
NHL attracting largest audiences of season on cable
Wednesday’s Canadiens-Penguins NHL Stanley Cup qualifier Game 3 averaged 575,000 viewers on NBCSN, ranking sixth among games on cable this season. Pittsburgh, which was eliminated in Friday’s Game 4, has played in four of the top six.
In other action, Tuesday’s Hurricanes-Rangers Game 3 averaged 542,000 — ranking eighth for the season on cable. Overall, six of the top ten have come since the season restarted on August 1.
MLB weak on FOX, ESPN; better locally
Regional Major League Baseball on FOX (mostly Cubs-Royals) averaged 1.49 million viewers Thursday night, per John Ourand of Sports Business Journal — the network’s least-watched MLB window since September 2018 (mostly Giants-Cardinals: 1.21M) and its least-watched in primetime since Rays-Yankees opposite the Olympics in 2016, Alex Rodriguez’ final game (1.02M).
The news was not much better on ESPN, which averaged 393,000 viewers for Mets-Nationals, 298,000 for Angels-Mariners and 249,000 for Pirates-Twins on Tuesday. Only one game on the network all of last season averaged fewer than 395,000 (9/25/19 A’s-Angels: 368K).
On a local level, MLB games averaged a 3.66 on U.S. regional sports networks during the first week of the shortened season, according to Forbes — up 17% from last year.
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 8.5, 8.6, 8.7; John Ourand/Twitter 8.7, Forbes 8.6]
