Neither team is moving the needle as much as in past seasons, but Lakers-Warriors remains the strongest TV draw in the NBA.
Saturday’s Lakers-Warriors NBA regular season game averaged 3.05 million viewers on ABC, down 23% from the same matchup on the same weekend last year, which went to double-overtime (3.97M) and down 17% from Lakers-Celtics two years ago, which also went to overtime (3.69M).
The Lakers’ comfortable win still ranks as the most-watched game outside of Christmas all season, surpassing Knicks-Celtics on TNT Opening Night (3.01M). Lakers-Warriors accounts for two of the season’s top six audiences, with their Christmas night matchup owning the top spot (7.91M).
While the LeBron James-Stephen Curry matchup remains atop the NBA marquee, neither the Lakers nor Warriors are having the outsized impact on ratings that had become the norm. Outside of their head-to-head meetings, the teams have played in only three of the season’s top 19 games — the Lakers’ Opening Night matchup with Minnesota, Klay Thompson’s first return to Golden State on November 12, and Warriors-Celtics on November 6.
All three games of ABC’s Saturday tripleheader trailed last year. A Celtics-Mavericks NBA Finals rematch averaged 2.45 million, down 7% from Sixers-Nuggets last year (2.62M), but even with Knicks-Nets two years ago.
Boston’s win ranks tenth for the season in viewership, with eight of the top ten games having aired on ABC (the other two were Opening Night games on TNT).
Nuggets-Timberwolves opened the day with 1.54 million, down 14% from Heat-Knicks last year (1.78M) and 12% from Nuggets-Sixers in ’23 (1.76M). In a rare overseas game on national TV, ESPN started the day off with 953,000 for Pacers-Spurs from Paris; there was no comparable window last year.
