The NBA season began on a mixed note in the ratings.
Tuesday’s Warriors-Lakers NBA Opening Night game averaged 3.39 million viewers on TNT, up 10% from Clippers-Lakers on opening night of last season, which took place in December (3.08M), but down 6% from Lakers-Clippers two years ago — the previous Opening Night in the month of October (3.58M).
Golden State’s win delivered the NBA’s second-largest Opening Night audience in the past four years (eight games), behind only the 2019 Lakers-Clippers game.
Not counting last year’s Play-in Tournament game, it was the most-watched meeting between LeBron James and Stephen Curry since Christmas 2018. The players have been two ships passing in the night as of late, with James missing much of the 2018-19 and 2020-21 seasons and Curry missing nearly all of 2019-20.
Earlier in the night, Nets-Bucks chipped in just 2.16 million — down 20% from Warriors-Nets last year (2.70M), down 4% from Pelicans-Raptors in 2019 (2.25M) and the league’s smallest Opening Night audience since 2007 (Rockets-Lakers: 2.05M).
Neither NBA game averaged as many viewers as the competing Major League Baseball League Championship Series games (Braves-Dodgers: 4.36M; Astros-Red Sox: 4.14M), but Warriors-Lakers was Tuesday’s top draw on all of television in adults 18-34 (1.25), 18-49 (1.31) and 25-54 (1.37).
It is worth noting that last year’s NBA Opening Night faced minimal competition, facing only the typical late December fare of college football bowl games. By contrast, Opening Night two years ago faced greater competition, airing opposite Game 1 of the World Series.
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 10.20]
