Bruins-Lightning got off to the best start of any second round Stanley Cup series in five years. Plus: the latest numbers for the NBA and Major League Baseball.
B’s-Bolts most-watched second round opener in five years
Last Sunday’s Bruins-Lightning second round Stanley Cup playoff opener averaged a 1.1 rating and 1.79 million viewers on NBC, marking the highest rated and most-watched NHL game since the season restarted August 1. It also ranks as the most-watched second round opener since Wild-Blackhawks in 2015 (1.87M). Keep in mind previous second round openers did not have the benefit of airing in Sunday primetime on broadcast television.
Game 2 of the series averaged 1.20 million on Tuesday and Game 3 982,000 on Wednesday, both on NBCSN.
In other action, Stars-Avalanche Game 1 averaged a 0.7 and 1.23 million on NBC last Saturday night — marking the lowest rated and least-watched primetime NHL playoff game ever on broadcast television. Game 2 averaged 692,000 on Monday and Game 3 601,000 on Wednesday.
Islanders-Flyers opened with 837,000 Monday night and 548,000 Wednesday afternoon. Canucks-Golden Knights opened with a mere 398,000 last Sunday night — the smallest second round audience since 2015 (Flames-Ducks Game 2: 265K) — before rebounding to 593,000 for Tuesday’s Game 2.
Quiet numbers for most recent NBA playoff games
Tuesday’s Mavericks-Clippers first round NBA playoff Game 5, the final game before play was temporarily suspended, averaged 2.43 million viewers on TNT — down 22% from Thunder-Blazers Game 5 in a later timeslot last year (3.11M). Jazz-Nuggets averaged 1.85 million earlier in the night, down 19% from Nets-Sixers a year ago (2.28M). This year’s games began at 6:30 and 9 PM ET; last year’s games began at 8 and 10:30.
On Wednesday, an Inside the NBA special about NBA player protests and the league’s postponement of games averaged 494,000 on TNT. Earlier, a special edition of The Jump averaged 345,000 on ESPN, followed by the most-watched edition of Pardon the Interruption (511K) since March 11 (841K). Notably, PTI was still down from the equivalent August date last year — on ESPN2 (541K).
On Thursday, an NBA Countdown special averaged 403,000 on ESPN.
Sunday Night Baseball up from comparable week of last season
Phillies-Braves averaged a 0.8 rating and 1.38 million viewers on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball last weekend (including an ESPN2 Statcast simulcast), flat in ratings and up 12% in viewership from the fourth week of last season (4/28/19 Indians-Astros: 0.8, 1.23M). Versus the same August weekend last year, ratings fell 47% (from 1.5) and viewership 42% (from 2.39M) from a much-hyped Yankees-Dodgers game.
In other action, Yankees-Braves averaged 536,000 on ESPN Wednesday, the network’s top weeknight MLB audience since the first week of the season (7/29 Astros-Dodgers: 752K). No other game over the past week exceeded 314,000 viewers (Cubs-Tigers on FS1 Monday).
TBS averaged 196,000 for Blue Jays-Rays last Sunday — a late replacement for its originally scheduled Mets-Yankees game — easily its smallest audience of the season.
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 8.25 a, b; 8.26, 8.27, 8.28]
