NBA Finals ratings continue to pace just slightly below last year’s levels.
Wednesday’s Nuggets-Heat NBA Finals Game 3 averaged a 6.0 rating and 11.24 million viewers on ABC, down 3% in ratings and 2% in viewership from Warriors-Celtics last year (6.2, 11.52M). Through three games of this year’s Finals, no game has had more than a three percent decline in viewership from last year’s higher-profile series.
Denver’s comfortable win, which peaked with 12.39 million viewers from 10:45-11 PM ET, ranks as the least-watched game of the series. Game 3 was also the least-watched of last year’s Finals.
Viewership again cruised past the two previous Finals, both of which took place months out-of-season due to COVID-related scheduling adjustments. Suns-Bucks Game 3 averaged 9.25 million in July 2021 and Lakers-Heat Game 3 an all-time Finals low 6.08 million opposite the NFL — and a presidential hospitalization — in October 2020.
Outside of those COVID-affected series, no Finals Game 3 has averaged fewer viewers since Spurs-Cavaliers in 2007 (9.49M) — one of only three such games with a smaller audience (all involving the ratings-challenged mid-2000s San Antonio Spurs).
It should be noted that ABC’s Nielsen-measured windows this season are starting about seven minutes later than last (relative to the tip-off). Last year’s Game 3 telecast was measured from 8:55 PM ET, 13 minutes ahead of the 9:08 PM tip. This year’s Game 3 was measured from 8:32 PM, six minutes before the 8:38 PM tip. In Game 2 — an 8:08 PM tip-off both this year and last — the telecast window began at 7:55 last year and 8:02 this year.
While seven minutes is not enough to explain why this year’s Finals is holding up so well relative to last year, it is a factor to keep in mind. The time-shift has the effect of boosting both the game broadcast (by shifting pregame ceremonies to the pregame show) and the pregame show (by extending into the advertised broadcast window).
Game 3 averaged a 3.4 rating in adults 18-49, a 2.7 in 18-34 and a 3.9 in 25-54 — series-lows in each demo and down from last year’s Game 3 (3.7; 2.9; 4.2). As usual, the NBA dominated the rest of television in viewership and the key demos Wednesday night.
(Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 6.8)
