A pair of midweek blowouts did little to slow the NBA Playoffs’ ratings surge.
Thursday’s Lakers-Warriors second round NBA playoff Game 2 averaged a 3.95 rating and 7.35 million viewers on ESPN, trailing only Game 1 on TNT (7.36M) as the largest early round audience on cable since 2012.
Golden State’s 27-point rout, which peaked with 8.39 million around halftime, delivered the fourth-largest audience of the NBA season behind Game 1 on Tuesday and Games 4 and 7 of Warriors-Kings on ABC in the first round (7.52M; 9.84M). The Warriors have played in the five most-watched games of the playoffs and six of the top nine.
After Game 1 was the most-watched second round opener ever on cable, Thursday’s game was the most-watched Game 2 since 2012 (Lakers-Thunder: 7.45M).
Since that 2012 postseason — the tail-end of an NBA viewership boom sparked by the resurgence of the Celtics and Lakers and sent into overdrive by the Miami “Heatles” — the Warriors have been the dominant draw of the playoffs. Golden State has played in nine of the ten most-watched first or second round games, across all networks, over the past decade.
Most-watched early round NBA playoff games since 2012
For the second straight game, Lakers-Warriors was television’s most-watched primetime show Thursday night. It also dominated in the key young adult demographics, with a 2.5 in 18-49, 2.0 in 18-34 and 2.85 in 25-54 more than doubling any non-NBA program.
On Wednesday night, the Celtics’ 34-point Game 2 rout of the Sixers averaged a 2.5 and 4.51 million — up 26% in ratings and 32% in viewership from Sixers-Heat last year (2.0, 3.43M).
Sixers-Celtics was the night’s top program in the key young adult demographics, cruising past the rest of television in 18-49 (1.6), 18-34 (1.3) and 25-54 (1.8).
