A ratings-focused preview of Saturday’s Pacers-Lakers NBA In-Season Tournament final: How has the IST performed thus far and what can be expected of the championship game?
How to watch Pacers-Lakers in the NBA In-Season Tournament Final
Date: Saturday, December 9
Time: 8:30 PM ET
Networks: ABC (traditional broadcast), ESPN2 (Kevin Hart altcast)
Streaming options: Sling (ABC is simulcast on ESPN3), Fubo, DIRECTV STREAM, YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV. (If you purchase a subscription, this site may receive a commission.)
The full NBA schedule is available here.
Breaking down In-Season Tournament ratings
Through Thursday’s semifinals, NBA In-Season Tournament games were averaging 1.5 million viewers on ESPN and TNT (1.4 million including a pair of Black Friday afternoon games on NBA TV). Compared to the equivalent windows last season, IST viewership is up more than a quarter — 26% — from 1.2 million. By comparison, the overall NBA average on those networks is up 11% (from 1.57 to 1.74 million), and the average for non-tournament games is up a modest 5% (from 1.86 to 1.95 million). Excluding Opening Week, the non-tournament average is basically flat, with 1.63 million both this year and last.
One might have noticed in looking at those numbers that the non-tournament average is higher than that of the IST. Indeed it is. Much of that has to do with the inclusion of Opening Week games, which are among the most-watched of any regular season. Yet even with those excluded, the non-tournament average remains higher at 1.63 million. The sample size is low — ESPN and TNT have combined for only ten games this season outside of the IST and Opening Week — but those run-of-the-mill regular season windows are averaging more viewers.
How does one square the following? IST viewership is no match for ordinary, meaningless regular season games, yet is outpacing last year at a far greater clip. One explanation is that last year’s Tuesday and Friday night games — the nights when IST group play games were held this season — were particularly mediocre. Those games averaged 1.20 million, compared to 1.86 million for games on other nights (1.63 million excluding Opening Week). Essentially, the IST shored up the weakest plank of the early season NBA audience.
In so doing, the tournament has achieved the NBA’s objective — not to create playoff-level audiences in December, but to give the league some juice on low-viewership nights. The NBA has largely stopped competing against Thursday Night Football, yet thanks to the IST averaged 2.1 million viewers (a strong number by regular season standards) for the Lakers’ 44-point rout of the Pelicans Thursday. Yes, LeBron James and the Lakers helped, but there is no universe in which a 44-point December rout of New Orleans is drawing that kind of audience on any night, regardless of the opponent — much less opposite the NFL.
Saturday’s ratings prediction
Saturday offers a different set of circumstances. The IST final replaces not a throwaway Tuesday or Friday night doubleheader, but instead one of the league’s marquee regular season windows. Between August and the final weekend of January, there is one weekend date in which there are no primetime football games — the second Saturday of December, when FBS college football is limited to the Army-Navy Game. The NBA began setting ABC’s season opener for that date in 2021, scheduling Warriors-Sixers in year one and a Celtics-Warriors NBA Finals rematch last season. In other words, the bar for success is higher for the final than it has been previously. (Surely, there will be no 90 percent viewership gains this time around.)
Celtics-Warriors last year averaged 3.14 million viewers, the fifth-largest audience of last season outside of Christmas. Based on the semifinal numbers, that figure actually seems reachable. The presence of the Lakers helps, and while the league would have preferred Boston or New York, upstart Indiana — an up-tempo underdog led by a new young star in Tyrese Haliburton – may not be the ratings drag it has been in the past. With no other NBA games played all weekend and no meaningful football competition (the Heisman Trophy Presentation is no longer a significant TV draw), expect the largest audience of the young season.
NBA In-Season Tournament Final: Pacers-Lakers (8:30p Sat ABC). Prediction: 4.05 million viewers.
Most-watched NBA games this season (through Thursday)
Through Thursday, the most-watched game of the NBA season remains Victor Wembanyama’s debut against Dallas, which averaged 2.99 million on ESPN.
