The lottery-bound Rockets attracted another small audience on ABC last weekend.
Last Sunday’s Thunder/Rockets NBA regular season game drew a 1.5 final rating and 2.3 million viewers, down 46% in ratings and 48% in viewership from Bulls/Cavaliers last year (2.8, 4.3M). Ratings and viewership also fell 21% from Rockets/Thunder on the same weekend last year, which aired in an earlier timeslot (1.9, 2.8M).
The Rockets’ win scored the fourth-smallest NBA audience on ABC over the past five years. Houston has now played in three of the network’s four lowest rated and least-watched games over that span, with Rockets/Bulls earlier this season (1.9M) and Rockets/Wizards last year (1.3M) holding the bottom two spots.
Entering the final weekend of the regular season, three games on ABC have earned a rating of 1.5 or lower — more than last year (two) and the network’s highest total in a single season since 2007-08 (four).
While it is a no-brainer that the NBA on ABC would rank behind the men’s Final Four, last week’s game also trailed NASCAR on Fox Sports 1 (2.5, 4.2M) and the PGA on NBC (2.4, 3.6M), and even scored a smaller audience than UConn/Oregon State in the Women’s Final Four (2.31M to 2.25M).
(Wknd. numbers via Sports Business Daily)
