A pair of intracity NBA rivalry games topped the sports viewership charts for Tuesday, January 23, though neither was a particularly big draw.
Tuesday’s Lakers-Clippers NBA regular season game averaged 1.30 million viewers on TNT, down 1% from the same matchup on the same January night last year (1.31M). (Compared to Sixers-Clippers on the equivalent date of last season — January 17 — viewership increased 41% from 922,000.)
The Lakers’ loss was their least-watched TNT game this season and third-least watched across ABC, ESPN and TNT.
Earlier in the night, Knicks-Nets averaged 989,000 — down 5% from Celtics-Heat on the year-ago night (1.05M). (Versus Raptors-Bucks on the equivalent date last season, viewership increased 16% from 849,000.)
Outside of the NBA, the top sporting event of the night was Australian Open tennis on ESPN at 523,000 viewers — up 37% from last year on ESPN2 (382K). Primetime coverage of the tournament is up 5% from last year, per ESPN.
Leading into the tennis coverage, a Texas-Oklahoma men’s college basketball game averaged 456,000 on ESPN — down 35% from Ohio State-Illinois last year (705K). In the same window on ESPN2, Florida State-Syracuse averaged 207,000 — also down 35% from LSU-Arkansas a year ago (320K).
In other college action, BTN averaged 205,000 for Wisconsin-Minnesota — up 77% from last year (Penn State-Rutgers: 116K) — and FS1 202,000 for Xavier-Creighton.
Tuesday, January 23 sports viewership
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