The new women’s basketball league Unrivaled delivered its top audience yet for the final rounds of its 1×1 tournament. Plus: NBA All-Star Weekend opened with declines Friday night; a top-ten finish by actor Frankie Muniz could not keep NASCAR’s Truck Series debut from a multi-year low.
Note: Nielsen as of this month expanded its out-of-home viewing sample to cover 100 percent of markets (up from two-thirds previously). As a result, viewership figures will generally compare favorably not only to past years, but even to past weeks.
Unrivaled 1×1 Tournament delivers new league’s top audience
The semifinals and final of the Unrivaled 1×1 Tournament averaged 377,000 viewers across TNT and truTV Friday night, marking the largest audience yet for the first-year women’s basketball league. The telecast, which peaked with 398,000 during the Napheesa Collier-Aaliyah Edwards final, increased 21% from the previous high of 312,000 for the debut telecast in January.
The full Unrivaled 1×1 Tournament averaged 179,000 on the TNT Sports networks, with that figure rising to 238,000 excluding coverage that aired exclusively on truTV (189K). Unrivaled as a whole is averaging 190,000 viewers, with that figure rising to 227,000 excluding truTV exclusives.
NBA Celebrity Game, Rising Stars, down Friday night
Friday’s NBA All-Star Celebrity Game averaged a 0.7 rating and 1.21 million viewers on ESPN, down 27% and 23% respectively from last year (0.9, 1.6M) and the least-watched edition of the event since at least 2007. It was still the most-watched sportscast of the night, topping a college basketball window on FOX (UCLA-Indiana: 1.14M).
The Rising Stars Challenge followed with 912,000 on TNT and truTV, down 15% from last year’s 1.07 million, but up 3% from two years ago (888K).
No Muniz bump as NASCAR Truck Series opener hits low
The NASCAR Truck Series season opener from Daytona averaged 1.01 million viewers on FS1 Friday night, down 4% in viewership from last year (1.1M) and the least-watched edition of the race since 2020 (1.00M). Actor Frankie Muniz of “Malcolm in the Middle” — now a racecar driver — finished tenth.
The multi-year low was a reversal from the prior night, when the Duel at Daytona was the most-watched since 2018. (A previous version of this post set the viewership at 990,000.)
