One of the most anticipated NBA Finals in recent years opened with a television audience beyond even the highest expectations.
Wednesday’s Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals Game 1 averaged 16.93 million viewers on ABC, officially surpassing last year’s Pacers-Thunder NBA Finals Game 7 (16.61M) to rank as the most-watched NBA game since 2019, when the clinching Raptors-Warriors Finals Game 6 averaged 18.59 million. Two of the top three have come in consecutive games, with Saturday’s Spurs-Thunder Western Conference Finals Game 7 on NBC placing third with 15.90 million (across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics).
The Knicks’ win, which peaked with 19.63 million in the 11 PM ET quarter-hour, ranks as the most-watched Game 1 of an NBA Finals since 2018, when the last of four-straight series between LeBron James’ Cavaliers and Stephen Curry’s Warriors averaged 17.67 million. The previous high was 13.38 million for Warriors-Raptors in ’19.
Going back further, Knicks-Spurs delivered the fifth-largest Game 1 audience in 25 years (2001 Sixers-Lakers: 18.58M), trailing only the four-straight Cavaliers-Warriors series from 2015-18.
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 skew historical comparisons, particularly to years before 2020. (In the years since 2020, only one Finals game would realistically have averaged a larger audience — last year’s Game 7.)
Most-watched NBA Finals openers, past 25 seasons
Game 1 viewership increased 90% from Pacers-Thunder last year (8.90M) — the biggest year-over-year increase for a Game 1 of the Finals — and 42% from the previous post-COVID high for a Game 1, Celtics-Warriors in 2022 (11.90M).
The last World Series opener to average as large an audience was in 2016 (with the aforementioned methodological caveats). It took until Game 6 before last year’s Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series surpassed Wednesday’s figure, with Game 1 at 12.5 million. (Dodgers-Yankees two years ago opened with 15.2 million, though that was before “Big Data”).
While comparisons to past years are obviously fraught given the many changes in measurement and viewing habits, it should be noted that Game 1 of this year’s series outdrew the previous NBA Finals opener between the Knicks and Spurs in 1999. Game 1 of that year’s series averaged 16.57 million on NBC, albeit in an entirely different era of television and Nielsen methodology.
