For the second straight year, the Warriors and Thunder delivered one of the top NBA regular season audiences in recent years.
Warriors/Thunder scored a 3.4 final rating and 6.1 million viewers on the latest edition of ABC’s NBA Saturday Primetime, marking the highest rated and most-watched NBA regular season game on any network, outside of the Christmas holiday, since Lakers/Heat in February 2013 (4.1, 6.5M). The previous highs were a 3.2 and 5.3 million for last year’s Saturday Primetime game between the teams.
Golden State’s blowout win, which marked the return of Warriors F Kevin Durant to Oklahoma City, delivered the eighth-largest regular season audience — again excluding Christmas — since the league’s current television deals began in the 2002-03 season. It was the top such game that did not involve the Lakers or Heat.
Viewership peaked at 7.0 million from 11-11:15 PM ET, one million fewer than the teams’ Saturday Primetime meeting last season, which went to overtime (8.1M).
Figures do not include the 89,000 who streamed coverage on WatchESPN. With those numbers included, the game had 6.2 million.
Warriors/Thunder has become one of the NBA’s biggest television draws. In addition to generating the two largest regular season audiences since 2013, their Game 7 matchup in last year’s Western Conference Finals ranks as the most-watched game outside of the NBA Finals since 2002.
In other action on ABC, Spurs/Knicks scored a 1.9 and 2.9 million on Sunday afternoon — up 46% in ratings and 38% in viewership from Clippers/Celtics the previous week (1.3, 2.1M) but down a tick and 10% respectively from Thunder/Cavaliers two weeks prior (2.0, 3.2M). There was no game on the comparable date last year, which featured the NBA All-Star Game on TNT.
(Wknd. numbers from ESPN Media Zone 2.14, ShowBuzz Daily 2.14)
