NBA sees early playoff ratings boost, driven by over-the-air games

We are a week and a half into the NBA playoffs, and the league continues to see strong viewership numbers.

Through 27 telecasts, the 2026 NBA playoffs are the most viewed since 1993. As of Sunday, the NBA is averaging 3.84 million viewers for first-round playoff games on ABC, NBC, ESPN, and Prime Video. That’s up 7% from games on ABC, ESPN, and TNT in the same period last year (3.61 million). The increase is 20% when including last year’s games on NBA TV (3.20 million).

This viewership average does not include games on NBCSN and Peacock, which are not Nielsen-rated. The average also includes Adobe Analytics streaming viewership for games on NBC, which ABC/ESPN and Prime Video do not use. A 7% increase is also within the range that could be explained by Nielsen’s shift to the new Big Data + Panel metric in September 2025, which has generally boosted sports viewership.

This is the first year of the NBA’s media rights agreement with NBC Sports, and the added over-the-air games that partnership allows are clearly benefiting the NBA. So far, eight of the 10 most-watched NBA postseason games have aired on the network, with the remaining two also over-the-air on ABC. As of Sunday, 14 games have aired over-the-air compared to six in the same window last year.

Game 4 of the Celtics-76ers series is the most-watched game so far, averaging 6.3 million viewers on NBC, according to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics data. That’s up 21% from Game 4 of the Celtics-Magic series on TNT in the same window last year (3.78 million). NBC says the Celtics-76ers game is the most-watched in the Sunday early primetime window since 2002. Game 4 of the Lakers-Rockets drew 6.2 million viewers on NBC, up 127% from the Pacers-Bucks game on TNT in the same window last year.

Notably, streaming-exclusive games on Prime Video account for seven of the 10 least-watched playoff games thus far. Game 3 of the Raptors-Cavaliers series on Prime Video, which faced competition from Game 3 of the Knicks-Hawks and Nuggets-Timberwolves, is the least-watched game so far, with 560,000 viewers — the only Nielsen-measured game this postseason under 1 million viewers. Nielsen does not measure games on Peacock and NBCSN, but those games, which have mostly overlapped with NBC games, would likely draw similarly low viewership.

For the playoffs, the NBA’s newest media rights deals have attempted to balance increased over-the-air games on NBC with increased streaming games on Peacock and Prime Video. It should not come as a surprise that the streaming exclusives tend to be the least-watched games, while the over-the-air games tend to be the most-watched. Those expecting dramatic increases due to Nielsen metric changes may be surprised by the relatively modest increase in viewership compared to last year. Still, the increased number of streaming games likely offsets some of those gains. As cord-cutting continues and fans get used to more streaming exclusives, the NBA is betting that viewership for streaming games will increase in the long run.