The NBA scored a pair of multi-year viewership highs Tuesday for Game 1 of the conference finals and the draft lottery.
Tuesday’s Lakers-Nuggets NBA Western Conference Finals Game 1 averaged 7.36 million viewers on ESPN (7.13M) and ESPN2 (234K), up 13% from Mavericks-Warriors on TNT last year (6.52M) and the most-watched conference final opener in five years — since Warriors-Rockets on TNT in 2018 (8.90M). Including Spanish-language coverage on ESPN Deportes (100K), the game averaged 7.46 million. Ratings were not immediately available.
Viewership increased 21% from last year’s conference final opener on ESPN (Celtics-Heat: 6.07M) and — as one would expect — easily outpaced the teams’ previous conference final opener in the “bubble,” a Friday night game in September that averaged 5.11 million on TNT.
Under the current NBA media rights deals that began in the 2002-03 season, Lakers-Nuggets ranks as the tenth-most watched conference final opener (41 total games).
(As with all multi-year highs, keep in mind that out-of-home viewing was not tracked in Nielsen final nationals prior to three years ago. All things being equal, games like Blazers-Warriors Game 1 in 2019 or Magic-Cavaliers Game 1 in 2009 — which both averaged 7.32 million without out-of-home included — likely had more viewers.)
Game 1 was the tenth of the playoffs to average at least seven million viewers, compared to three at the same point last season. It joins Games 4 and 7 of Warriors-Kings in the first round, Game 7 of Sixers-Celtics in the second, and all six games of the Lakers-Warriors series.
Earlier in the night, the NBA Draft Lottery — which saw San Antonio win the #1 pick that is expected to be used on French star Victor Wembanyama — averaged 3.24 million, up 50% from last year (2.15M) and the highest since Zion Williamson was the expected #1 pick in 2019 (4.43M).
Lakers-Nuggets was the most-watched program of the night on television and topped the charts in each of the key young adult demographics. The primary ESPN broadcast earned a 2.6 rating in 18-49, a 2.1 in 18-34 and a 2.9 in 25-54, up 16%, 14% and 17% respectively from last year’s Mavericks-Warriors Game 1. The game and shoulder programming accounted for the night’s top four programs 18-49 and 25-54 and the top five in 18-34.
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 5.17)
