Helped by better matchups and less competition, the NBA scored massive increases in viewership in week two of its season.
Tuesday’s Warriors-Suns NBA regular season game averaged 2.32 million viewers on TNT, nearly doubling last year’s equivalent window (Nuggets-Jazz: ~1.2M) and the most-watched game of the young season outside of Opening Night. Ratings were not immediately available.
The Mavericks-Pelicans lead-in was also up double-digits to a 1.0 and 1.61 million.
On Wednesday, Bucks-Nets combined for a 1.1 and 2.00 million across ESPN (1.0, 1.80M) and a Stephen A. Smith-fronted alternate presentation on ESPN2 (0.13, 202K) — the networks’ top audience in four years for the first half of a weeknight doubleheader and nearly double last year (Hawks-Pelicans: 0.6, ~1.0M).
The Nuggets-Lakers nightcap drew 1.82 million, up more than two-thirds from last year (Grizzlies-Blazers: ~1.1M).
Key to the massive gains — beyond swapping out low-wattage teams for marquee matchups — was the late start for this year’s World Series. Last year’s games faced Games 1 and 2 of the Fall Classic, while this year’s Series did not begin until Friday night.
NBA TV also got into the act with 658,000 viewers for Heat-Warriors and 547,000 for Mavericks-Nets on Thursday night, more-than-doubling last year’s solo Knicks-Bulls game on the network (~263K).
Entering Friday night, nine of 12 NBA games on ESPN and TNT had posted an increase over last year. Among the exceptions was ESPN’s doubleheader of Nuggets-Warriors (1.1, 1.91M) and Celtics-Heat (0.8, 1.41M) the prior Friday — both of which declined from last year’s equivalent games (Suns-Lakers: 1.1, 2.12M; Nets-Sixers: 0.9, 1.70M).
(Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 10.26, 10.27, ShowBuzz Daily 10.25, 10.26, 10.27, 10.28)
