NBA viewership has almost fully rebounded from its much-publicized double-digit decline at the start of this season, with ABC playing a key role.
NBA games are averaging 1.58 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and TNT, down just 1 percent from the same point last season. Including NBA TV, the season average of 1.10 million is down 5 percent. Earlier this season, viewership was down in the neighborhood of 20 percent, with most of that decline wiped out by the league’s most-watched Christmas Day slate in five years.
Much of the recovery is due to ABC, which averaged 2.68 million viewers for 24 games this season — up 10% from last year (2.44M). The network carried all five Christmas Day games, up from two last season. It also did not carry any of the Wednesday night windows that were added to the schedule last season as strike replacement programming.
The network’s averaged 2.82 million viewers for its NBA Saturday Primetime window, down 10% from last year’s 3.13 million, which included the NBA Cup Final. This year’s NBA Cup Final aired on a Tuesday night. Excluding that year-ago telecast, the year-over-year decline is three percent.
Knicks-Warriors concluded the Saturday slate with an average of 2.73 million, unsurprisingly down from Warriors-Lakers last year (2.97M).
Its NBA Sunday Showcase series averaged 2.14 million (-1%), with its season finale doubleheader of Suns-Lakers and Magic-Cavaliers averaging 2.67 and 1.77 million respectively — up 24 and 17 percent from a year ago (Nuggets-Mavericks: 2.15M; Suns-Bucks: 1.51M).
In other weekend action, ESPN averaged 1.39 million for Thunder-Bucks Sunday night; there was no comparable window last year.
Across all of ESPN/ABC, NBA games are averaging 1.77 million — up 1% from last year.
For more sports viewership, see the SMW sports ratings tracker.
