The Pro Bowl Skills Show maintained viewership year-over-year, along with relatively quiet weeks for the NBA and NHL. Plus: weeknight college hoops numbers, the PGA Tour, and a look at the lower-viewed Australian Open numbers.
Pro Bowl Skills on par with last year
The 2025 Pro Bowl Skills Show averaged 1.13 million viewers, down a hair from last year’s edition (1.14M) to rank as the second-most watched since 2018. Thursday’s broadcast increased 7% in the key P18-34 demo and peaked at 1.4 million viewers during the 8:15-8:30 p.m. ET window.
Another mostly quiet week for the NBA
Thursday’s Rockets-Grizzlies NBA regular season game averaged 908,000 viewers across TNT and truTV, preceded by Hawks-Cavaliers at 725,000 — down 5 and 55 percent respectively from last year’s pairing of Sixers-Jazz (957K) and Lakers-Celtics (1.60M). All four games on TNT Sports this week failed to hit the million viewer mark, with Lakers-Sixers at 884,000 (-11%) and Bucks-Trail Blazers at 625,000 (-50%) on Tuesday. Lakers-Sixers, which did not have a truTV simulcast, was blacked out in the Los Angeles market.
Wednesday’s Nuggers-Knicks contest averaged 1.129 million viewers on ESPN, down 20% from an ABC window a year ago that featured the Suns-Nets (1.411 million). In the nightcap, Thunder-Warriors drew 888,000 viewers — up 11% from Bucks-Blazers last year (800K), but an unusually low figure for a game involving Stephen Curry. It should be noted that the game coincided with the breaking news event of the D.C. plane crash.
NHL on TNT sees an increase despite small audiences
Wednesday’s Flyers-Devils NHL regular season game averaged 253,000 across TNT and truTV, up 59% from a non-exclusive Kings-Predators game a year ago (159K). Penguins-Utah Hockey Club followed with just 138,000 viewers. (The broadcast was non-exclusive in Pittsburgh.) As a result, it was the second least-watched game of the season and the least-watched non-exclusive game overall, with no comparable window last season.
Plus: CBB, PGA, and Australian Open
— The latest edition of ESPN’s ‘Big Monday’ college basketball doubleheader saw mixed results, with NC State-Duke averaging 1.064 million in the 8:30 p.m. ET window, up 19% from Virginia Tech-Duke a year ago. The contest also received a TGL lead-in which featured Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, which averaged 864,000 viewers. Closing out the night, Iowa State-Arizona’s overtime contest drew 633,000 viewers, down 34% from a 90-minute earlier Houston-Texas contest last year (959K).
— Final round coverage of Saturday’s PGA Tour event at Torrey Pines averaged 1.410 million viewers on CBS, down 11% from a year ago (1.59 million).
— Sunday’s Jannik Sinner-Alexander Zverev’s Australian Open men’s final drew 465,000 viewers on ESPN, down 12% from last year’s final, which featured Sinner’s five-set win over Daniil Medvedev. As a whole, the 2025 Australian Open finished with an average of 235,000 viewers across ESPN and ESPN2, down 11% from last year and 16% compared to 2023, despite having a women’s final that was up 34% year-over-year. The quarterfinals onward saw steeper declines for this year’s tournament with a 295,000 viewership average, down 20% from 2024.
Jon Lewis contributed to this article.
