While much of the talk about the NBA’s rising viewership has concerned the league’s new rights partners, incumbent ESPN has been no exception.
NBA regular season games were averaging 2.02 million viewers across NBCUniversal, ESPN/ABC and Prime Video through Wednesday, a Nielsen estimate that includes Adobe Analytics viewership for NBC games — up 18% from last year. Including NBA TV, which is carrying fewer games this season and thus drags down the average less than in past years, viewership is up 47%.
In particular, games on the ESPN networks were averaging 2.6 million viewers through Christmas — up 35% from last year and behind only the 2010-11 season as the networks’ highest average at that point of a full season. (The shortened 2011-12 and 2020-21 seasons did not begin until the week of Christmas.)
Keep in mind that Nielsen did not begin tracking out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020 and did not do so in 100 percent of markets until last February. In addition, Nielsen in September shifted to a new “Big Data + Panel” methodology that combines its traditional panel with data from smart TVs, set-top boxes and select providers’ internal first party estimates (including Amazon). Those changes will skew comparisons to past years.
In addition, ESPN this season is carrying fewer games than under the previous NBA media rights deal. The network has aired NBA games on only two days since November — Christmas and this past Wednesday night. As a result, high-viewing nights like Opening Week, Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas account for a greater portion of the networks’ average than in past seasons.
As for the new rights partners, NBC’s recent run of fully national doubleheaders did not perform at the levels of the regionalized single-game windows it has been carrying much of the season.
On December 30, the network averaged a 1.1 rating and 1.96 million viewers for Sixers-Grizzlies and a 1.0 and 1.72 million for Pistons-Lakers, with viewership rising to 2.2 and 2.0 million respectively including Adobe Analytics.
The previous night, it averaged 1.7 million for Cavaliers-Spurs and 1.2 million for Mavericks-Blazers (including Adobe Analytics). And in the previous week’s doubleheader on December 23, Nuggets-Mavericks averaged 2.0 million and Rockets-Clippers 1.5 million (again, including Adobe Analytics).
By comparison, NBC’s prior regionalized window — December 2 — averaged 3.2 million. (Figures for NBC’s most recent regional window this past Tuesday were not immediately available).
