No LeBron or AD, no problem for the Lakers — or TNT — Thursday night.
The shorthanded Lakers’ upset of the Celtics averaged 1.60 million viewers on TNT Thursday night, the largest sports audience of the day and up 37% from Grizzlies-Cavaliers on the same night last year (1.17M). (Compared to Knicks-Celtics on the equivalent date last season, January 26, viewership actually declined 2% from 1.64 million.)
The Lakers’ win featured neither LeBron James nor Anthony Davis and TNT’s coverage was blacked out in Los Angeles. With that in mind, viewership was the lowest for a matchup of the historic rivals since April 2021 — the previous time both James and Davis missed the matchup. Nonetheless, the drop-off from their TNT meeting last season was a modest six percent (1.70M).
The Sixers-Jazz nightcap followed with 957,000 viewers, down 7% from Clippers-Bucks last year (1.03M). (Compared to Mavericks-Suns on the equivalent night last season, viewership fell 25% from 1.28 million.)
Placing second for the night among sportscasts, the NFL Pro Bowl Skills Showdown averaged 1.14 million on ESPN — up 8% from last year (1.06M) and the largest for the event since 2018 (1.17M). In other football action, college football’s East-West Shrine Game increased 16% from last year to an audience of 216,000 on NFL Network.
Returning to the hardwood, a Wisconsin-Nebraska men’s game topped the night in college basketball with 446,000 on BTN. ESPN drew 332,000 for a Texas-Baylor women’s matchup, down 21% from Maryland against Caitlin Clark and Iowa last year (418K), followed by an Oregon-USC men’s game at 257,000 (+23%). ESPN2 chipped in 169,000 for Stanford-Arizona State (-48%) and 117,000 for Tulane-SMU (-61%).
In other action, opening round coverage of the PGA Tour Pebble Beach Pro-Am averaged 384,000 on Golf Channel (+5%) and a Manchester United-Wolves English Premier League match scored 299,000 on USA Network.
Thursday, February 1 sports ratings
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