After a strong return Thursday, NBA ratings over the weekend were pretty ordinary.
The NBA restart at Walt Disney World averaged 1.86 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and TNT through Monday, up 14% from the networks’ average before the league suspended its season in March (1.63M). That is despite all of the games co-existing with local RSN coverage in the participating markets.
After night one of the restart jumped 109% over TNT’s season average, weekend games on ESPN and ABC were in line with — or below — the networks’ pre-hiatus norm.
On ABC Sunday, Bucks-Rockets averaged a 1.5 rating and 2.44 million viewers and Blazers-Celtics a 1.1 and 1.66 million — both below the network’s pre-hiatus average of 3.20 million (which includes three Christmas Day games). Bucks-Rockets ranks as the eighth-most watched of ABC’s 16 windows this season and Blazers-Celtics third-to-last.
If middle-of-the-road by ABC standards, Bucks-Rockets still delivered the largest NBA audience of the season excluding Laker and Christmas games. The previous high was 2.36 million for Spurs-Pelicans on ESPN January 22, Zion Williamson’s NBA debut.
ABC’s previous primetime game — Sixers-Warriors on March 7 — averaged a 1.3 and 1.93 million. Keep in mind its other primetime windows aired on lower-rated Saturday nights.
Over on ESPN, Lakers-Raptors averaged a 1.1 and 1.80 million on Saturday and Rockets-Mavericks a 1.1 and 1.72 million on Friday, both above the network’s pre-hiatus average of just under 1.5 million. Lakers-Raptors delivered ESPN’s third-largest NBA audience since January, behind Bucks-Lakers on March 6 (2.43M) and Lakers-Pelicans on March 1 (2.69M).
Monday’s Lakers-Jazz game was also above average at 1.60 million.
ESPN’s other games were below average. Pelicans-Clippers averaged a 0.9 and 1.37 million, Jazz-Thunder a 0.9 and 1.30 million and Heat-Nuggets a 0.8 and 1.14 million on Saturday, while Celtics-Bucks drew a 0.9 and 1.30 million on Friday. Grizzlies-Pelicans on Monday brought up the rear with 1.02 million.
It is worth noting that the level of households using televisions (HUT) is seven percent lower in July than in March and April, when the season was originally scheduled to conclude.
