Ratings predictions for the opening weekend of the NBA Playoffs and more, including the first head-to-head between USFL and XFL.
NBA Playoffs looks promising, but expect an opening weekend dip
The NBA playoff bracket is about the best the league could hope for on paper. 2023 marks the first postseason in five years to include both LeBron James and Stephen Curry. It includes all six active Finals MVPs: James, Curry, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Giannis Antetokounmpo (and Andre Iguodala). It includes both New York teams and both L.A. teams, plus teams ending long playoff droughts Sacramento (in its first postseason since 2006) and Cleveland (in its first postseason without James since 1998). If all plays out as desired, the league could have a made-for-TV semifinal round of Boston-Philadelphia, New York-Milwaukee and above all the Lakers against Golden State. Then again, despite decades of conspiracy theories about the league pulling the strings, things rarely work out the way the networks would like.
As promising as this postseason is, it is a safe bet that opening weekend viewership will fall well short of last year. The opening Sunday of last postseason was Easter, which has become a major viewing holiday in the out-of-home era. Sunday’s games will be hard-pressed to match last year’s Easter-fueled levels, which will likely drag down the average for the full opening weekend. (Something to keep in mind when the inevitable headlines start zipping through social media on Tuesday.) Nonetheless, Saturday’s games seem poised for solid gains, particularly the start of Golden State’s title defense.
The Warriors’ title-run last year was not quite as big a draw as one might have expected, given how strong a draw they were during the regular season — to say nothing of their prior title runs. Golden State’s middling record this season could actually help. The Warriors seemed somewhat inevitable last season (even after two years in the lottery) and never faced much adversity. That was one thing when they were a historic superteam, but in most cases a little adversity goes a long way in the ratings.
As a 6 seed this year, Golden State will have to pull off some 1995 Rockets-style history in order to repeat as champions, and starting out against one of the more compelling postseason stories in recent memory — the resurgent Kings — should result in some more eyeballs this time around. Last year, Nuggets-Warriors Game 1 drew 4.52 million in the same ABC Saturday night window.
NBA Playoffs first round, Warriors – Kings Game 1 (8:30p Sat ABC). Prediction: 5.06M.
After a 33-win season last year and a 2-10 start to this season, it seemed likely that LeBron James would miss the playoffs for an unthinkable third time in five seasons in Los Angeles. Instead, the Lakers turned their season around after the trade deadline and find themselves a trendy pick for a deep run. As defending champions two years ago, the Lakers entered the playoffs as a #7 seed and trendy dark horse pick before an ill-timed Anthony Davis injury ended their chances against Phoenix. As ever, the Lakers’ odds depend on the availability of their stars. One imagines the network executives have their fingers crossed.
As for Game 1 against Memphis, the Lakers and Grizzlies have some bad blood — nevermind the reason — which gives this series some additional juice. Expect a fairly steep drop in viewership from last year’s Easter-boosted 6.90 million for Nets-Celtics, but a healthy number nonetheless. James’ two previous first round openers with the Lakers took place in August and May respectively. The last time he opened a postseason in the month of April, in 2018 with Cleveland against Indiana, his Game 1 loss drew 5.94 million in the same Sunday ABC window.
NBA Playoffs first round, Lakers – Grizzlies Game 1 (3p Sun ABC). Prediction: 5.84M.
Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant last played each other in the postseason for one quarter of the 2019 NBA Finals. Durant returned from injury in Game 5, his Warriors trailing 3 games to 1, and shifted the momentum instantly. Just as quickly, he tore his Achilles in one of the more dramatic tonal shifts in playoff history. To find the last time these stars played each other in a full playoff game, much less a full series, one has to go back nine years to the Spurs-Thunder Western Conference Finals. Such is life in an NBA where the best stars have been to a large degree injury-prone.
Leonard, who missed the end of the 2021 playoffs and all of last season with a torn ACL, is missing his running mate Paul George for this series. A fully healthy Clippers squad against this Suns team would have been a conference final-quality matchup. Instead, Los Angeles is a decided underdog. Nonetheless, the stars in this series should move the needle enough to generate some healthy viewership. On Easter Sunday last year, Pelicans-Suns opened with 4.02 million.
NBA Playoffs first round: Clippers – Suns Game 1 (8p Sun TNT). Prediction: 4.14M.
The Knicks are back in the playoffs for the second time in three years, facing a Cavaliers team making their first playoff appearance without LeBron since 1998. Easily the most compelling Eastern Conference series on paper, expect better-than-average numbers — and not just due to the presence of the New York media market. The 2023 Knicks may not be a title contender, but seem like a more serious contender than two years ago after the offseason addition of Jalen Brunson. Similarly, these Cavaliers are not a cute underdog story, but one of the better teams in the league thanks to the addition of star guard Donovan Mitchell — a known quantity from his years in Utah. The biggest draw in this series may well be the quality of play. In the same window last year, Raptors-Sixers opened with 3.60 million.
NBA Playoffs first round: Knicks – Cavaliers (6p Sat ESPN). Prediction: 4.02M.
How will the XFL and USFL fare in their first head-to-head?
Saturday begins one of the more intriguing experiments in recent sports TV history as two spring football leagues compete for what is a limited audience. The XFL has played eight weeks this season, maxing out at an audience of 1.57 million for a week one game on ABC. The USFL last season opened with more than three million, but that was for an opening game primetime simulcast that aired on NBC and FOX. Outside of that, it maxed out at 2.15 million for a week one game on NBC.
The key question as these leagues prepare for their first head-to-head is whether the already-limited spring football audience can sustain itself across two competing leagues. There are eight games between the two this weekend, including head-to-heads Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. That is more than in a typical NFL weekend. Will the viewers who watch Vegas-Houston (XFL) on ABC Saturday afternoon switch to FOX for Philadelphia-Memphis (USFL) later in the day? Will they stay with the USFL in primetime, or switch to the XFL on ESPN2? Will they have any appetite left for Sunday’s slate, which opens with a head-to-head between Arlington-DC (XFL) on ESPN and Houston-Michigan (USFL) on NBC?
Expect the combined viewership to resemble a particularly good XFL weekend. Somewhere in the mid-one million range per window, whether for the standalone games or the head-to-heads.
— XFL: Vegas – Houston (12:30p Sat ABC). Prediction: 1.06M.
— USFL: Philadelphia – Memphis (4:30p Sat FOX). Prediction: 1.34M.
— USFL: New Jersey – Birmingham (7:30p Sat FOX) vs. XFL: Orlando-San Antonio (7p Sat ESPN2). Predictions: 1.22M (USFL) and 243K (XFL).
— USFL: Michigan-Houston (Noon Sun NBC) vs. XFL: Arlington-DC (Noon Sun ESPN). Predictions: 809K (USFL) and 519K (XFL).
Will college gymnastics be the next women’s sports success story?
Much has been made of the growth in women’s sports viewership of late, and the women’s college gymnastics national championship figures to be another data point to that effect. Last year’s national championship averaged over 900,000 viewers despite airing in an early timeslot to accommodate ABC’s NHL coverage. This time around, nationals gets a later 4 PM ET window leading into the local news, which should by itself be enough to lift viewership past the one million mark. No doubt much of that will be attributed to LSU’s NIL-era star Olivia Dunne, but given Dunne has competed in just four meets all season (all on the relatively low-profile uneven bars) and did not participate in Thursday’s semifinals, she seems unlikely to be a factor.
NCAA women’s gymnastics national championship: Oklahoma, Utah, Florida and LSU (4p Sat ABC). Prediction: 1.05M.
Previous predictions
— NCAA WBB national championship: LSU-Iowa. Prediction: 7.12M; result: 9.9M.
— NCAA MBB national championship: UConn-SDSU. Prediction: 13.94M; result: 14.69M.
— MLB: Phillies-Rangers. Prediction: 1.65M; result: 1.56M.
— NASCAR Cup Series: Richmond. Prediction: 1.92M; result: 2.30M.
— F1 Australian GP. Prediction: 678K; result: 556K.
