After a second-straight night over 20 million, the Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals is now the most-watched since the end of the Michael Jordan era.
Wednesday’s Spurs-Knicks NBA Finals Game 4 averaged 20.9 million viewers on ABC, officially marking the largest audience for a Game 4 in the NBA Finals since Jazz-Bulls on NBC in 1998 (28.70M). The previous high over that span was 20.3 million for Lakers-Pistons on ABC in 2004.
The Knicks’ stirring comeback win, which peaked with 23.2 million in 11:15 PM ET quarter-hour, was the second-straight game to rank as the most-watched since 1998, with Game 3 on Monday night averaging 23.8 million.
The full series now officially ranks as the most-watched NBA Finals through four games since 1998 (26.87M) — the most-watched NBA Finals on record — with its average of 19.61 million surpassing the previous mark of 19.44 million for Warriors-Cavaliers in 2017. (The Warriors-Cavaliers series averaged 19.8 million through four games when including additional streaming viewership that was not tracked by Nielsen.)
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 integrates its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes. Those changes will skew historical comparisons, particularly to years before 2020. (It is certain that at least two Warriors-Cavaliers series and Lakers-Sixers in 2001 would rank higher all things being equal.)
Most-watched NBA Finals through four games since 1998
Game 4, which saw San Antonio lead by as many as 29 and by 20 in the fourth quarter before the Knicks’ record comeback, declined 12% from Game 3 on Monday night. The closest comparison to Wednesday’s thriller, the Celtics’ comeback from a 24-point deficit in Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals against the Lakers, also declined from the previous game — slipping 5% from 14.51 to 13.76 million.
Viewership increased 123% from last year’s Friday night Thunder-Pacers Game 4 (9.41M).
Dating back to Game 7 of last year’s series, five-straight NBA Finals games have averaged at least 16 million viewers, the longest streak since 22-straight surpassed that mark from Heat-Spurs Game 5 in 2014 through each of the four-straight Cavaliers-Warriors matchups from 2015-18.
From the COVID hiatus of 2020 through Game 6 of last year’s Finals, 34-straight Finals games had failed to reach the 14 million mark.
Outside of football and the Olympics, Game 4 ranks fourth among sportscasts since the COVID hiatus, behind last year’s World Series Game 7 (26.88M), Game 3 on Monday night, and the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final (22.32M).
