The new NBA media rights deal has already been a boon for the league’s playoff viewership.
Through Sunday, the first round of the NBA Playoffs was averaging 3.84 million viewers across NBCUniversal, ESPN/ABC and Amazon’s Prime Video (including Adobe Analytics for NBC games), up 20% from last year on ESPN/ABC, TNT and NBA TV, and officially the highest average at this point of the postseason since 1993.
(Note that Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, only began doing so in 100 percent of markets a year ago, and is mere months into a new methodology that combines its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes. Those changes will generally skew historical comparisons.)
After a slight decline for the opening weekend, NBA playoff viewership almost immediately recovered thanks to back-to-back nights of primetime NBC doubleheaders. NBC’s games this past weekend brought the total number of windows on broadcast this postseason to 14 as of Sunday — the most in any postseason prior to the Finals since NBC previously held NBA rights in 2002.
All of the NBC windows thus far aired on cable last season. Prior to this season, all first round playoff games on cable were non-exclusive and had to compete with local RSN broadcasts. Moving from non-exclusive on cable to exclusive on broadcast has, unsurprisingly, resulted in massive gains. NBCUniversal was averaging 5.1 million across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics through its first ten playoff games, up 53% from the comparable windows last year.
That includes Sunday’s Celtics-Sixers Game 4, which delivered the largest audience of the postseason to date with a combined 6.3 million viewers across Nielsen (2.8 rating, 5.33M viewers) and Adobe Analytics — up 67% from a Nielsen-only 3.78 million for last year’s non-exclusive Celtics-Magic Game 4 on TNT Sports. (NBC’s position is that because Nielsen does not track its streaming viewership, its combined Nielsen + Adobe audience figures are comparable to the Nielsen-only figures of other networks.)
Lakers-Rockets followed with 6.2 million (2.5, 4.86M per Nielsen), up 127% from Pacers-Bucks on TNT Sports last year (2.74M).
NBC delivered the three largest audiences of the weekend — NBA or otherwise — as Saturday’s Knicks-Hawks Game 4 averaged 5.3 million (2.1, 4.19M per Nielsen), up 56% from Nuggets-Clippers on TNT a year ago (3.39M). Rounding out the NBC slate, Thunder-Suns Game 3 drew 3.3 million (1.4, 2.49M per Nielsen), up 67% from Thunder-Grizzlies on TNT last year (1.98M).
While NBC’s games benefited in going from cable to broadcast, ESPN took a hit moving in the other direction. ESPN on Sunday averaged a 2.0 and 4.10 million for Spurs-Trail Blazers Game 4, down 44% from Lakers-Timberwolves on ABC in the same window last year (7.35M). Cavaliers-Raptors led in with a 1.5 and 2.94 million, also notably lower than last year’s comparable window, Knicks-Pistons on ABC (3.90M).
ABC also suffered a double-digit decline, though with a notable caveat. Nuggets-Timberwolves Game 4 drew a 1.8 and 3.77 million Saturday night, down 25% from Rockets-Warriors last year (5.08M) — but coverage aired during a breaking news event that resulted in a half-hour preemption for an ABC News special report. Game coverage aired on ESPN during the special report, with both ESPN and ABC carrying the game afterward. Figures for the ESPN portion were not included in the ABC audience figure.
Finally, Prime Video posted double-digit increases for a pair of overlapping tripleheaders opposite the NFL Draft. The streamer averaged 1.82 million last Thursday and 2.70 million last Friday, up 15 and 35 percent respectively from last year’s equivalent windows.
In particular, the Lakers’ comeback, overtime win over the Rockets Friday night averaged a 1.3 and 2.91 million — up 38% from Celtics-Magic on ESPN last year (2.11M). The game overlapped with Celtics-Sixers, which at a 1.3 and 2.66 million had several times the audience of Pacers-Bucks on ESPNU and NBA TV a year ago (389K).
The Spurs-Blazers nightcap had a 1.3 and 2.51 million, down 28% from Lakers-Timberwolves last year (3.50M).
On Thursday, Nuggets-Timberwolves drew a 1.3 and 2.44 million — up 28% from Thunder-Grizzlies last year (1.90M). Knicks-Hawks led in with a 1.1 and 2.36 million, up 3% from Knicks-Pistons (2.28M). Both games overlapped with Cavaliers-Raptors, which at just 560,000 viewers still increased 28% from last year’s Nuggets-Clippers game on NBA TV (439K), with the significant caveat that games on NBA TV were subject to local blackout.
Going back to the middle of last week, ESPN averaged a 1.7 and 3.08 million for Suns-Thunder and a 1.5 and 2.92 million for Magic-Pistons in a Game 2 doubleheader last Wednesday — a mixed bag compared to Warriors-Rockets (3.58M) and Magic-Celtics (2.55M) on TNT Sports last year. Those games also had to compete with a third overlapping game on NBA TV.
