Viewership for Game 1 of the NBA Finals is in, and it’s already a major ratings success.
The New York Knicks’ victory over the San Antonio Spurs on June 3 averaged 16.93 million viewers, peaking with 19.63 million viewers at 11 p.m. ET.
Viewership was up 90% from Game 1 of last year’s Oklahoma City Thunder-Indiana Pacers series (8.91 million).
Comparisons to last year may be affected by Nielsen’s shift to the new Big Data + Panel standard, which has generally inflated live sports viewership by 15%. Needless to say, a 90% increase from last year cannot be fully explained by Nielsen’s shift to Big Data.
Game 1 was also up 3% from Game 7 of the Thunder-Pacers series last year. In fact, it was the most-watched NBA Finals game since Game 6 of the Toronto Raptors-Golden State Warriors series in 2019 (18.34 million).
Additionally, Game 1 drew a larger audience than every MLB World Series Game 1 since 2017. Game 1 of the 2016 Chicago Cubs-Cleveland series averaged 19.37 million viewers.
More recently, Game 1 outdrew each of the first five games of the 2025 Los Angeles Dodgers-Toronto Blue Jays World Series, which was the first major sports championship measured under the Big Data standard.
If history is any indication, a long series could be a massive ratings boom for the NBA and ABC. The Warriors-Cleveland Cavaliers Finals are the only other NBA Finals since 2012 to draw more than 16 million viewers for Game 1, and each of those series topped 20 million viewers by Game 5.
The NBA has not had a Finals game top 20 million viewers since Game 5 in 2017.
About Manny Soloway
Manny Soloway is a Iowa based writer focusing on TV ratings. He is also the founder of the TV Media Blog substack.