The blockbuster trade did not quite translate into a blockbuster audience, but Luka Doncic’s Laker debut still delivered one of the top NBA audiences on cable this season.
Monday’s Jazz-Lakers NBA regular season game, which marked the Laker debut of Luka Doncic, averaged 2.01 million viewers on ESPN — the most-watched NBA game on cable since Mavericks-Warriors on TNT November 12, Dallas G Klay Thompson’s first return to the Bay Area (2.14M).
The Lakers’ blowout win, which peaked with 2.55 million in the 11:15 PM ET quarter-hour, ranks fifth for the season among cable-exclusive games behind the aforementioned Mavericks-Warriors game, Warriors-Celtics on ESPN November 6 (2.14M) and TNT’s Opening Night doubleheader (Knicks-Celtics: 3.01M; Timberwolves-Lakers: 2.91M).
Across all networks, it ranks outside a top ten that consists largely of ABC games.
Doncic was traded from the Mavericks to the Lakers February 1, a transaction that has been widely regarded as one of the most unexpected in NBA history. ESPN added Pacers-Lakers to its schedule Saturday afternoon in the hopes that he would make his debut then, but after he missed that game — which still averaged 1.39 million — the network added Monday’s matchup against Utah.
In order to accommodate the Jazz-Lakers game, the network moved the conclusion of its Baylor-Houston college basketball game to ESPNU. Baylor-Houston averaged 758,000 viewers before being preempted.
For the night, it was television’s top program in all of the key adult and male demographics.
Elsewhere Monday night, NBA TV averaged a season-high 555,000 viewers for Warriors-Bucks — up 54% from Nuggets-Bucks in the same year-ago window (360K). It was the second Warriors game for recent acquisition Jimmy Butler.
