The NBA’s inaugural awards show delivered solid numbers on TNT.
The NBA Awards earned a 1.1 final rating and 1.79 million viewers on TNT Monday night, 2% higher than the league’s average viewership on TNT, ESPN and ABC during the regular season (1.75M).
Compared to the NBA’s previous awards show, a one-off event in 2015 run by the players’ union, viewership increased 147% from 722,000 on BET.
The NBA Awards was no match for the NFL Honors (3.2M) or Heisman Trophy Presentation (2.6M), but topped the most recent awards shows in the NHL (595K), NASCAR (435K) and college basketball (223K). The ESPY Awards is currently the king of the sports award show genre, having earned 5.6 million on ABC last year.
On a decently competitive night for late June, the NBA Awards topped Game 1 of the College World Series final on ESPN (1.78M) and the tape-delayed debut of the new BIG3 basketball league on Fox Sports 1 (398K). Its performance was less impressive when one includes non-sports programs. Depending on how one counts the WWE — it is rated as three separate hours, but for the purpose of this analysis will be counted as one program — the NBA Awards at best tied for eighth Monday night in adults 18-49 (0.8).
[Mon. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 6.27, with additional info from Son of the Bronx]
