Neither the ratings disaster of the “bubble” nor a return to normal, a pair of unexpected, non-traditional NBA conference finals continues to put up respectable numbers.
Monday’s Clippers-Suns NBA Western Conference Finals Game 5 averaged 5.74 million viewers on ESPN, up 20% from last year’s clinching Nuggets-Lakers Game 5 in the “bubble” on TNT, which aired on a college football Saturday (4.79M), and the most-watched game of the conference finals thus far. For the postseason, the Clippers’ win ranks third behind a pair of semifinal Game 7s (Bucks-Nets: 6.91M; Hawks-Sixers: 6.16M) and ahead Warriors-Lakers in the Play-in Tournament (5.62M).
Game 5 ranks as the most-watched NBA telecast on ESPN since the clinching Warriors-Blazers Game 4 in the 2019 Western Conference Finals (7.79M), and the network’s top game that did not include the Warriors or LeBron James since a Thunder-Clippers second round game in 2014 (6.40M).
Saturday’s Game 4 of the series averaged a 2.8 rating and 5.54 million viewers, up a tick in ratings and 20% in viewership from Lakers-Nuggets opposite Thursday Night Football last year (2.7, 4.60M) but down 40% and 29% respectively from the aforementioned 2019 Warriors-Blazers clincher (4.7, 7.79M).
Shifting to the East, Sunday’s Bucks-Hawks Game 3 averaged a 3.1 rating and 5.60 million viewers on TNT — up 55% in ratings and 47% in viewership from Celtics-Heat on a college football Saturday last year (2.0, 3.81M) but down 16% and 9% respectively from Bucks-Raptors in 2019 (3.7, 6.16M).
Milwaukee’s competitive win faced unusual competition from the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials, which finished as the most-watched sporting event of the week with a 3.2 and 5.75 million.
Game 3 was the tenth game of the playoffs and 11th of the postseason to average more than five million viewers, compared to just two games prior to the Finals last year. That figure is not far off from the same point of the 2019 postseason, when 15 games had crossed the five million mark — but most of those 2019 games averaged more than six million (14, compared to two this year).
The Bucks’ Game 2 rout of the Hawks Friday night averaged a mere 2.0 and 3.70 million, actually down a tick in ratings but up 6% in viewership from Heat-Celtics last year — which aired opposite Thursday Night Football (2.1, 3.48M) — and down 29% and 16% respectively from 2019 (Raptors-Bucks: 2.8, 4.39M). Only three conference final games in the “bubble” averaged fewer viewers, each of which aired opposite the NFL, and two of which faced Sunday Night Football (Nuggets-Lakers Game 2: 3.17M; Heat-Celtics Game 6: 3.45M).
Friday’s game ranks as easily the least-watched of the conference finals, and the least-watched playoff game overall since a similarly lopsided Jazz-Clippers Game 4 in the second round (3.35M).
[Nielsen estimates from ESPN, Nielsen]
