The highly-anticipated Spurs-Thunder NBA Western Conference Finals lived up to the billing on the court and in viewership.
Saturday’s Spurs-Thunder NBA Western Conference Finals Game 7 averaged 15.90 million on NBC across a Nielsen-measured linear audience (12.67M) and a streaming audience tracked by Adobe Analytics (3.23M), officially ranking as the most-watched conference final game since Thunder-Warriors on TNT in 2016 (16.00M).
The Spurs’ win, which peaked with 22.2 million viewers, increased a third from the previous conference final Game 7, Heat-Celtics on TNT in 2023 (12.00M). Compared to the previous Western Conference Finals Game 7 in 2018, Warriors-Rockets on TNT, viewership increased 7% from 14.81 million. (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.)
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 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, particularly to years prior to 2020.
Game 7 delivered the second-largest NBA audience since 2019, behind only Game 7 of last year’s Pacers-Thunder NBA Finals (16.61M). The Thunder, by virtue of playing an NBA Finals and conference final Game 7 in back-to-back years, have played in the only two NBA games since COVID to average more than 14 million viewers.
Spurs-Thunder was the first conference final Game 7 to air on broadcast television since NBC previously held NBA rights in 2002 — when Lakers-Kings averaged 23.80 million on a Sunday night in June. It ranks eighth out of the 19 total conference final Game 7s in the Nielsen people-meter era (1988-present).
NBA conference final Game 7 viewership, Nielsen people-meter era
The full seven-game Spurs-Thunder NBA WCF averaged 10.83 million viewers on NBC and Peacock across Nielsen (8.50M) and Adobe Analytics (2.33M), making it the most-watched conference final since the seven-game Lakers-Kings on NBC and TNT in 2002 (13.12M).
The series ranks as the sixth-most watched conference final of the past 30 years and the second-most watched Western Conference Final, narrowly ahead of Lakers-Blazers on NBC and TNT in 2000 (10.82M). (Given changes in Nielsen methodology, it is a lock that series would rank higher all things being equal.).
Keep in mind it was only the second conference final to air entirely on broadcast television, after the four-game Spurs-Trail Blazers on NBC in 1999. While NBC aired the overwhelming majority of conference final games in the 1990s, TNT typically carried at least one — and as many as three — games of each series.
Notably, Spurs-Thunder averaged more viewers than last year’s seven-game Thunder-Pacers NBA Finals (10.30M), though that series predated Nielsen’s shift to “Big Data + Panel” methodology.
Compared to last year’s five-game Thunder-Timberwolves West Finals on ESPN, viewership increased 94% from 5.59 million. Versus the previous seven-game conference finals, viewership increased 46% from Heat-Celtics on TNT in 2023 and 15% from the previous WCF to go seven — Warriors-Rockets on TNT in 2018 (9.4M).
The seven Spurs-Thunder games rank among the eight most-watched this NBA season, with Game 6 last Thursday night placing second at 11.59 million (9.28M per Nielsen, 2.32M per Adobe) — the most-watched conference final Game 6 since 2002 (16.64M).
NBC owns each of the top eight, with the seven Western Conference Finals games joined by Sixers-Celtics Game 7 in the first round (10.99M following the Kentucky Derby). In its first season carrying NBA games since 2001-02, the network delivered nine of the top ten audiences this postseason — the exception being Knicks-Cavaliers Game 3 on ABC in the Eastern Conference Finals (8.11M) — and 17 of the top 24.
Overall, NBC finished its NBA playoff run averaging 7.2 million viewers across 28 games, not including games that aired exclusively on Peacock and NBCSN, which were not rated. Viewership for games on NBC increased 72% from the equivalent windows last season.
Oklahoma City and San Antonio were the two highest rated markets for NBC Sports’ NBA playoff coverage, the former averaging a 19.3 rating and 50 share and the latter a 15.7 and 42 share. Tulsa (11.8/32), Austin, Texas (7.5/31) and Memphis (5.8/19) rounded out the top five.
