The first NBA Finals Game 7 in nine years delivered the league’s largest audience in six.
Sunday’s Pacers-Thunder NBA Finals Game 7 averaged a 7.6 rating and 16.61 million viewers across ABC and ESPN+, marking the highest rated and most-watched NBA game since Game 6 of the 2019 Finals (Raptors-Warriors: 18.59M). No NBA game in the intervening years had reached even the 14 million mark, with Warriors-Celtics Game 6 in 2022 coming closest at 13.99 million.
Since the last of the four-straight Cavaliers-Warriors finals in 2018, Game 7 ranks as the third-most watched NBA game — and one of only three total to surpass the 14 million mark — behind Games 5 and 6 of that Raptors-Warriors series.
Oklahoma City’s win, which was marred by a first quarter injury to Pacers G Tyrese Haliburton, peaked with 19.58 million in the 9:45 PM ET quarter-hour.
Most-watched NBA games since 2019
Over the past calendar year, Pacers-Thunder Game 7 ranks fourth among non-football sporting events behind Game 5 of last year’s Dodgers-Yankees World Series (18.15M), the Florida-Houston NCAA men’s basketball national championship (18.14M) and the Kentucky Derby (appx. 16.7M per Nielsen, 17.7M including Adobe Analytics).
As anyone would reasonably expect, Pacers-Thunder was the least-watched of the six NBA Finals Game 7s in the Nielsen people meter era (1988-present), the most recent of which was the Cavaliers’ epic 2016 win over the Warriors (31.02M). The previous Game 7 low was just under 19 million for Spurs-Pistons in 2005.
While ratings and viewership paled in comparison to previous NBA Finals Game 7s, the corresponding shares — 26 and 32 respectively — were among the highest in recent memory. The 26 household share is tied as the third-highest for a Finals game since 1998, behind only Cavaliers-Warriors Game 7 in 2016 (29) and Celtics-Lakers Game 7 in 2010 (27).
The 32 viewership share is the highest on record for a Finals Game 7, surpassing the previous high of 30.0 for Knicks-Rockets in ’94. The share — the percentage of homes or viewers using television who are watching a program in the average minute — will tend to grow as television usage declines.
Game 7 averaged a 5.15 rating in adults 18-49, a 4.4 in 18-34 and a 5.8 in 25-54, each ranking as the highest for an NBA game since 2019. Moreover, the shares in each demo were 58, 71 and 50 respectively. The 71 share in 18-34 is the highest ever for an NBA Finals game in the demo.
Given the performance of the first six games, a Game 7 audience north of sixteen million was far from guaranteed. None of the first six reached the ten million mark, with viewership topping out at 9.54 million for Game 5.
Game 6 last Thursday night, figures for which were delayed by the Juneteenth holiday, averaged a 4.8 and 9.28 million — down more than a third from the previous Game 6, the previously mentioned Warriors-Celtics in 2022 (7.5, 13.99M), and the lowest rated and least-watched Game 6 outside of Lakers-Heat in the 2020 “bubble,” which aired on an NFL Sunday in October (4.2, 8.59M).
The Pacers’ blowout win also declined from Games 4 and 5 of this year’s series, which drew 9.41 and 9.54 million.
The full, seven-game Thunder-Pacers NBA Finals averaged 10.30 million viewers on ABC — down 9% from last year’s five-game Celtics-Mavericks series (11.31M) and the least-watched Finals since the COVID-delayed Bucks-Suns in July 2021 (10.15M). Excluding the COVID-delayed series of 2020 and 2021, it was the least-watched Finals since Spurs-Cavaliers in 2007 (9.29M).
Through five games, the series was averaging 9.18 million, which would have been the lowest average for any Finals outside of Lakers-Heat in the 2020 “bubble” (7.66M). Going to a Game 6 and 7 pulled the series average above Bucks-Suns in ’21, Spurs-Cavaliers in ’07 and Spurs-Nets in 2003 (9.86M).
