To the surprise of many, replacing the Warriors and Celtics with the Nuggets and Heat has not had a meaningful impact on NBA Finals ratings.
Sunday’s Heat-Nuggets NBA Finals Game 2 averaged a 6.0 rating and 11.91 million viewers on ABC, down 3% in ratings and flat in viewership compared to Celtics-Warriors last year (6.2, 11.91M). Miami’s narrow win peaked with 15.26 million viewers from 10-10:15 PM ET, well ahead of last year’s Game 2 peak of 14.14 million (in a less competitive game).
Game 1 of the series last Thursday had a similar 6.0 and 11.58 million across ABC and ESPN2, down just 6% and 3% respectively from last year. (Related: Heat-Nuggets opens within 3% of C’s-Warriors)
The Celtics and Warriors are two of the league’s three biggest ratings draws (along with the Lakers) and hail from top ten media markets. This year’s Finals viewership was expected to fall well short of last year, as neither Denver nor this iteration of Miami have been known to move the needle.
Viewership comfortably outpaced the two prior Finals, both of which aired out-of-season due to COVID-related scheduling adjustments. Bucks-Suns Game 2 averaged 9.59 million in July of 2021 and Heat-Lakers just 6.78 million opposite breaking news of a presidential hospitalization in October 2020.
Excluding those two COVID-affected series, one would have to go back to Cavaliers-Spurs in 2007 to find a smaller Game 2 audience (8.55M). In the past three decades, only three Finals — all involving the ratings-challenged mid-2000s Spurs — averaged fewer viewers in Game 2: 2007, 2005 (Pistons-Spurs: 10.66M) and 2003 (Nets-Spurs: 8.06M). Game 1 was also the least-watched since 2007 (with the COVID seasons excluded).
Notably, this year’s series is skewing slightly younger than Warriors-Celtics a year ago. Games 1 and 2 each averaged a 3.2 rating in adults 18-34, up 6% and 3% respectively from last year (3.0, 3.1) and the highest for the first two games of the Finals since 2019. Game 2 had a whopping 45 share in 18-34, meaning that 45% of adults under 35 watching linear television were tuned to the game. (Consider that also means just 3.2% of the 18-34 demo accounted for nearly half of the demographic’s television viewing Sunday night.)
By comparison, ratings in adults 18-49 declined in Game 1 (3.8 to 3.7) and held steady in Game 2 (3.7), while ratings in 25-54 were flat at a 4.2 for both games.
Denver led all markets Sunday with a 22.3 rating, up from Game 1 (19.9) and a record for an NBA game in the market. The Nuggets had not previously made an NBA Finals. Miami ranked second at a 15.2, surpassing Game 1 and each game in the “bubble” as the market’s highest for a Finals game since the “Heatles” era in 2014.
West Palm Beach, Fla., ranked third at an 11.5. Milwaukee was the top neutral market at a 9.2 and Memphis rounded out the top five at an 8.7.
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 6.6, network PR)
