The San Antonio Spurs were a ratings drag during the days of Tim Duncan, but the Victor Wembanyama era promises to be the opposite.
Sunday’s Spurs-Timberwolves second round NBA playoff Game 4 averaged a combined 7.9 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, trailing only Sixers-Celtics Game 7 on NBC following the Kentucky Derby (10.99M) as the most-watched game of the ongoing NBA Playoffs.
The last non-clinching early round game to average as large an audience was Warriors-Lakers Game 3 on ABC in 2023, a matchup pitting LeBron James and Stephen Curry (8.37M). (Note that Nielsen methodological changes — specifically the expansion of its out-of-home viewing sample and shift to a new methodology that combines its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes — will generally skew comparisons to past years.)
Minnesota’s win, which peaked with 10.2 million, nearly doubled last year’s comparable Cavaliers-Pacers Game 4 on TNT Sports — a lopsided contest that averaged a Nielsen-only 4.04 million. (NBC’s position is that because Nielsen does not track its streaming viewership, its combined Nielsen + Adobe audience figures are comparable to the Nielsen-only figures of other networks.)
Game 3 of the series Friday night averaged 5.25 million on Prime Video, marking the streamer’s largest NBA audience thus far (as of Friday). Viewership increased 24% from Thunder-Nuggets on ESPN last year (4.24M), and also notably surpassed Lakers-Thunder on Prime Video the previous night (5.08M).
Game 2, as previously noted, delivered 5.2 million on ESPN last Wednesday — the most-watched game of the playoffs on the cable network. (Note that ESPN had aired only two second round games through Tuesday.)
While some of the credit may belong to Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves — who have played in highly-viewed games in each of their past two playoff runs — the Spurs account for several high water marks this season. Prior to the playoffs, the most-watched game of the season was Spurs-Thunder on ABC/ESPN Christmas Day and the most-watched outside of broadcast television was the Knicks-Spurs NBA Cup Final on Prime.
In other playoff action, ABC averaged 5.9 million for Thunder-Lakers Game 3 Saturday night — down 10% from Timberwolves-Warriors last year (6.6M). NBC averaged a combined 4.9 million for Pistons-Cavaliers earlier in the day, down 8% from last year’s Celtics-Knicks on ABC (5.34M).
On Sunday, the Knicks’ sweep-clinching Game 4 rout of the Sixers drew 5.7 million on ABC — down 5% from Thunder-Nuggets a year ago (6.0M). Game 3 of the series drew 4.16 million on Prime Video Friday night, up 6% from Cavaliers-Pacers on ESPN last year (3.91M).
Including the previously-mentioned Spurs-Timberwolves game, the Prime Video Friday night doubleheader averaged 4.72 million — up 16% from the same night on ESPN last year, with more pronounced gains among adults 18-34 (+65%), 18-49 (+47%) and 25-54 (+39%).
The previous night, the streamer averaged 5.08 million for Lakers-Thunder Game 2 — up 2% from Warriors-Timberwolves on TNT Sports a year ago (4.96M), well within the margin that would be explained by Nielsen methodological changes. Cavaliers-Pistons led in with 3.84 million; there was no comparable window last year.
Going back to early last week, NBC averaged a combined 6.8 million for Thunder-Lakers Game 1 last Tuesday and 6.3 million for Sixers-Knicks Game 1 the night before — up a third and 28% respectively from last year’s equivalent games (Warriors-Timberwolves: 5.1M; Knicks-Celtics: 4.9M). Both nights, NBCU carried a second game that aired on Peacock and was not Nielsen-rated (Timberwolves-Spurs on Monday, Cavaliers-Pistons on Tuesday).
