The NBA Finals is off to the kind of start that cannot be sugarcoated.
Thursday’s Warriors-Raptors NBA Finals Game 1 had a 7.9 rating and 13.31 million viewers on ABC, down 21% in ratings and 25% in viewership from last year (10.0, 17.67M) and down 25% and 29% respectively from 2017 (10.5, 18.74M), both of which were Cavaliers-Warriors matchups.
Toronto’s win ranks as the lowest rated and least-watched NBA Finals game in a decade, since Magic-Lakers Game 1 in 2009 (7.8, 13.04M). It snapped a streak of 52 straight finals games with at least an 8.0 rating and 14 million viewers.
Dating back to 1988, it is one of only 19 finals games with less than an 8.0 rating, and one of only five that did not involve the San Antonio Spurs. The other four were Magic-Lakers Game 1 in ’09, Games 1 and 4 of Heat-Mavericks in ’06 (both 7.8) and the infamous Rockets-Knicks Game 5 in 1994, which aired opposite the O.J. Simpson chase.
Game 1 was the first NBA Finals game to involve the Raptors, whose Canadian fanbase is not measured by Nielsen. The game had a Canadian audience of 3.5 million across SportsNet and RDS. Even with the Canadian audience included, the combined audience of 16.8 million would mark a five-year low — though it would also exceed the U.S.-only audience for every Game 1 from 2002-2014.
In the U.S. alone, Game 1 had a 4.8 rating in adults 18-49 — down 26% from last year (6.5) and down 30% from 2017 (6.9). The 4.8 is the lowest for any NBA Finals game in the demo since the record-low Spurs-Cavaliers series in 2007. Ratings in adults 18-34 also hit a 12-year low. The 4.2 rating in that demo declined 26% from last year (5.7) and 32% from 2017 (6.2).
Ratings also fell in adults 25-54 (5.2, -22%).
Sunday’s Game 2 had a 10.2 overnight rating, down 20% from both last year (12.7) and 2017 (12.8). The 10.2 tied the lowest Game 2 overnight since 2009 (9.9), matching the two Heat-Spurs series in 2013 and 2014. The game had a 29.1 in the Bay Area, up from Game 1 (26.4), but the market’s third-lowest finals rating in the Warriors’ run of five-straight appearances (24 total games).
Game 1 posted an unusually steep 22% drop from the overnight to the final rating, the biggest for any finals game since 2003. With a similar result, Game 2 would end up below the 2013 and 2014 series.
NBA Finals Game 2 overnight ratings
[Thu. rating from Anthony Crupi/Twitter 6.3, Programming Insider 6.4; other data from ShowBuzz Daily 6.3; Sun. overnight from ESPN PR 6.3, Sports Business Daily 6.3]
