The NBA Finals took its customary spot atop the sports ratings charts on Wednesday, June 12.
Wednesday’s Celtics-Mavericks NBA Finals Game 3 averaged a combined 6.0 rating and 11.43 million viewers across ABC (5.7, 10.97M) and ESPN (0.27, 453K), flat in ratings and up 2% in viewership from Nuggets-Heat last year (6.0, 11.24M) and the most-watched sporting event of the day.
For more on ratings for the Celtics’ win, plus averages for the series thus far, see this article.
Placing second for the day, a United States-Brazil men’s soccer friendly averaged a combined 1.95 million, including 1.11 million for Spanish-language coverage on Telemundo and Universo and 848,000 for English-language coverage on TNT (682K) and truTV (166K). The English-language audience was the largest yet for a USMNT match on TNT Sports.
No other sporting event managed even 200,000 viewers. An A’s-Padres Major League Baseball matinee ranked third for the day with 170,000 on MLB Network, with a late night regional window following at 151,000. The annual Congressional Baseball Game averaged 116,000 on FS1.
On the day of an NBA Finals game, the FS1 talk show “Undisputed” averaged 35,000 viewers — its second-smallest audience since returning from hiatus last year. The only edition with fewer viewers was on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend (31K).
Wednesday, June 12 sports viewership
