The NBA All-Star Game on Sunday night went head to head with the midseason premiere of The Walking Dead on AMC. And while the ASG’s viewership average of 7.6 million (between TNT and TBS) was up 6% from 2015 (without the token bump from the home market, since the game was held in Toronto), that viewership paled in comparison to what The Walking Dead drew.
The TWD premiere drew a whopping 13.7 million viewers, 80% more than the NBA All-Star Game drew on two networks.
Walking Dead > NBA > politics > pro wrestling. pic.twitter.com/YVQmlKIsws
— Alex Weprin (@alexweprin) February 17, 2016
In news that’s actually shocking, Talking Dead, The Walking Dead’s recap companion show, drew 6.4 million viewers, actually more than the NBA All-Star Game drew on TNT alone.
The Walking Dead’s dominance on cable isn’t exactly a new thing. In 2014, the show beat Game 5 of the World Series head to head while also knocking off Monday Night Football to become cable’s most-watched series. Also in 2014, nine of the top ten most-watched cable programs (and 16 of the top 20) of the year were TWD episodes, with the Florida State-Auburn BCS Championship Game standing strong as the lone outlier.
In short, this isn’t a surprise – The Walking Dead has been steamrolling its competition on cable for years, even when its going head to head with Sunday Night Football on NBC. But it’s still a bit jarring to see just how thoroughly the midseason premiere outdrew the NBA All-Star Game, which drew a strong viewership number for a league in the NBA experiencing strong growth since the last lockout ended four years ago.
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