The games have not been particularly close, but the NBA conference finals continues to outperform previous years.
The first three games of the Warriors-Mavericks NBA Western Conference Finals averaged 6.9 million viewers on TNT, up 34% from the first three games of last year’s Clippers-Suns series on ESPN/ABC (5.2M). Sunday’s Game 3 averaged a 4.0 rating and 7.42 million on TNT, marking the largest conference final audience on any network since Golden State’s previous appearance in the round three years ago (Warriors-Blazers: 4.7, 7.79M).
The Warriors’ win, which peaked at 8.5 million from 11:15-11:30 PM ET, was the first game of the series to outdraw the equivalent game of Warriors-Blazers in ’19. Game 3 of that series, which aired on a lower-rated Saturday night on ESPN, averaged 7.25 million without aid of out-of-home viewing. The 2019 game also averaged a higher household rating (4.2).
Game 3 delivered the largest audience of the playoffs on cable and third-largest regardless of network. Golden State has now played in four of the top seven and six of the top eleven. Aided by nine Golden State games (and counting), TNT is averaging 4.0 million for the playoffs thus far, its highest average since 2018 — the previous year the network had Golden State in the conference finals.
Game 3 was Sunday’s television’s top show in all of the key demographics and in viewership, finishing comfortably ahead of ABC’s “American Idol” in the latter metric (6.49M). As has been previously noted, it is common for NBA games to win the night in the young adult demos, but relatively rare for one to top the charts in viewership outside of the Finals.
Shifting to the other conference final, ABC averaged a 3.6 and 6.81 million for Saturday’s Heat-Celtics Game 3 and a 3.6 and 6.40 million for Monday’s Game 4 — both up double-digits from Bucks-Hawks last year and the most-watched respective games of the Eastern Conference Finals since Cavaliers-Celtics in 2018, the previous ECF to take place in the normal time of year and feature two American teams (6.83M; 7.94M). Despite lopsided margins, all four games of Heat-Celtics have hit four-year viewership highs.
Heat-Celtics easily won the night on television in all of the key demos on both Saturday and Monday. Game 3 also won the night in viewership, but Game 4 ranked second behind the season finale of the CBS series “NCIS” (7.47M).
Locally, Warriors-Mavericks Game 3 drew a 19.4 rating in the Bay Area and a 9.8 in Dallas-Ft. Worth. Heat-Celtics Game 3 drew a 12.1 in Boston and a playoff-high 8.9 in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale. Game 4 figures were not immediately available.
[Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 5.24, ShowBuzz Daily 5.24, network PR]
