After a series (and post-hiatus) high in Game 4, a Saturday night Game 5 of the NBA Finals slipped back under the ten million mark.
Saturday’s Bucks-Suns NBA Finals Game 5 averaged a 4.8 rating and 9.62 million viewers on ABC, flat in ratings and up a modest 7% viewership from Heat-Lakers last October, a potential title-clincher and the most-watched game in the “bubble” (4.8, 8.96M), and down a sharp 55% and 48% respectively from Warriors-Raptors in June 2019, another potential clincher in which Kevin Durant returned from injury only to tear his Achilles (10.6, 18.60M).
Outside of the “bubble” last year, it was the least-watched Game 5 of the Finals since Spurs-Nets in ’03 (9.31M) — and the first Game 5 since Lakers-Magic in ’09 to decline from the preceding Game 4.
Milwaukee’s exciting win, which peaked with 12.11 million viewers, was the first NBA Finals game on a Saturday since 1981 — when Games 3 and 4 aired on back-to-back weekend afternoons so the league could avoid weeknight tape-delays on then-rights partner CBS.
The Saturday night game was a consequence of the schedule. Had the Finals started on July 8, Game 5 would have been on a Sunday night, preceded by a Friday Game 4. The move up to July 6 allowed the league to include additional travel days between game sites, its apparent preference since Adam Silver became commissioner. This year’s series includes only one instance of a single travel day between sites — between tonight’s scheduled Game 6 in Milwaukee and a potential Game 7 in Phoenix 48 hours later.
Saturday night has long been the least-watched night of the week and sporting events traditionally average fewer viewers on that night than any other. For years, the least-watched game of any given World Series was the Saturday night Game 3 (or more recently, Game 4). With that said, the addition of Nielsen’s new out-of-home viewing measure — which should help capture some of the viewing in bars and restaurants that is (presumably) higher on Saturdays than any other night of the week — could make Saturday nights a less unattractive option going forward.
It bears noting that despite the modest 7% bump over the “bubble” — easily the smallest of the series — Game 5 still ranks as the second-most watched NBA game since the league went on hiatus in March of last year, and delivered the eighth-largest (non-football) sports audience since 2019. While Game 5s are generally expected to outperform previous games in a series, it bears noting that the Saturday night game outdrew the Tuesday Game 1 (8.56M), Thursday Game 2 (9.38M) and even the Sunday night Game 3 (9.02M).
After Games 2-4 each topped the corresponding game of last year’s World Series, Game 5 could not match the equivalent Rays-Dodgers game last October (10.06M). That game had an NFL lead-in (though it also faced NFL competition).
[Nielsen estimates from ESPN PR/Twitter 7.20, Nielsen]
