The Celtics failed to make history on the court, but their comeback against the Miami Heat delivered in a big way in the ratings.
Monday’s Heat-Celtics NBA Eastern Conference Finals Game 7 averaged a 5.8 rating and 12 million viewers on TNT, up 26% in ratings and 22% in viewership from last year’s Game 7 between the same teams on ESPN (4.6, 9.9M) and the largest NBA audience outside of the Finals since 2018.
Miami’s easy win, which peaked in the fast-nationals at 14.2 million from 10-10:15 PM ET, delivered the third-largest NBA audience ever on TNT and the fifth-largest ever on cable. It trails only four other conference final game sevens, Celtics-Heat on ESPN in 2012 (13.3M), Cavaliers-Celtics on ESPN in 2018 (13.6M), Thunder-Warriors on TNT in 2016 (16.0M) and Warriors-Rockets on TNT in 2018 (14.9M).
Across all networks, Game 7 delivered the seventh-largest NBA audience (outside of the NBA Finals) since the current media rights deals began in the 2002-03 season. It trails the four aforementioned conference final Game 7s and a pair of Heat-Lakers Christmas Day games in 2004 (13.2M) and 2010 (13.1M). Miami has played in 11 of the 18 most-watched games, more than any other franchise.
(As with all multi-year highs, keep in mind that out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen’s final nationals prior to three years ago.)
Largest NBA audiences in current TV deal
(Excluding the NBA Finals)
As goes without saying, Game 7 ranks as easily the most-watched game of the NBA Playoffs — comfortably surpassing the previous high of 9.84 million for Warriors-Kings Game 7 in the first round.
Saturday’s thrilling Game 6 averaged a 4.0 and 8.71 million, up 14% and 21% respectively from last year on ESPN (3.5, 7.19M) and trailing only the teams’ back-to-back game sevens as the most-watched conference final game since 2018. Overall, this postseason delivered four of the five largest conference final audiences in the past five years, with Games 3 and 4 of Nuggets-Lakers ranking fourth and fifth respectively (8.38 and 8.21 million).
The Celtics’ last-second win scored the third-largest audience of the playoffs. Thanks to Games 6 and 7, the Boston ended up in three of the five most-watched games.
The full Heat-Celtics Eastern Conference Finals averaged 7.4 million viewers, up 6% from last year’s series between the same teams on ESPN. The strong results for Games 6 and 7 marked a sharp turnaround from earlier in the series, when viewership alternated between slight gains or slight declines.
Games 6 and 7 were the seventh and eighth games of this postseason to top the eight million viewer mark, tying 2018 as the most in a single playoffs since 2012.
Each game dominated its respective night on television, topping the charts in overall viewership and the key young adult demographics. Game 7 had a 4.2 rating in 18-49 and a 3.8 in 18-34, television’s highest ratings in those demographics since the Super Bowl — surpassing the NCAA men’s basketball national championship (3.7 and 2.9) and Academy Awards (4.0 and 2.9). Its 4.6 rating in 25-54 was the highest since the Oscars (5.0).
None of last year’s NBA Finals games had as high a rating in 18-34 and only one — the clinching Game 6 (4.3) — had a higher rating in 18-49.
Game 6 had a 3.0 in 18-49, 2.6 in 18-34 and 3.3 in 25-54.
NBA conference final Game 7 viewership, past 30 years
(Nielsen estimates from Turner Sports PR, ShowBuzz Daily 5.31)
