The second round of the NBA Draft saw the arrival of Bronny James to the Los Angeles Lakers. But its bizarre time slot made the debut of the league’s two-day draft format fizzle.
However, a closer look showed that the league’s unfortunate scheduling conflict with the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden led Round 2 to be pushed up to the mid-afternoon. With no presidential race in 2025, NBA insider Marc Stein reported Friday that the draft is expected to air in primetime next year.
“I’m told that the untraditional afternoon slot was indeed selected because of the presidential debate last Thursday night that was guaranteed to completely overwhelm all other TV programming available,” Stein wrote in his newsletter, The Stein Line. “No firm decisions have been made yet about next season’s timing, but it is presumed that Year 2 of a separate telecast for Round 2 would begin in the evening.”
The first round this year aired at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday, June 26, live from Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The second round began at 4 p.m. ET the following day from ESPN’s Seaport Studios in Manhattan.
As a result, the second round averaged fewer than 900,000 viewers, down 25 percent in its new day and time slot. The first round drew more than 4.4 million viewers on average, down 11 percent from 2023.
Overall, the 2025 NBA Draft class is projected to be more coveted and well-known. Duke commit Cooper Flagg is the front-runner to be drafted first overall, while high-profile prospects from Rutgers, Baylor and BYU could fill out the top 10.
Best of all for the NBA, campaign season will be long over by next June.
