NBA TV sees mixed viewership results since October relaunch

The NBA has seen mixed success with the 2025 relaunch of NBA TV. While viewership for live games is on par with previous years, viewership for studio programming has declined immensely since last year.

TNT Sports operated NBA TV from October 2008 to October 2025, through its larger media rights agreement with the NBA. In summer 2024, the NBA reached agreements with Prime Video and NBC Sports to replace TNT. That meant in October 2025, the NBA took over operations of NBA TV.

One major change the NBA made after taking over the network was replacing the flagship studio show, NBA GameTime, with a new show called The Association. The network also decreased the number of live NBA games aired, replacing those games with more studio programs. Prior to this season, NBA TV regularly aired games on Monday nights. Those games now primarily air on Peacock.

Studio programs are a cheap way to keep people engaged in the NBA. While younger fans will watch highlights and recaps on social media, there is still a significant portion of the population who consume highlights “the old-fashioned way.” While NBA TV studio programs air at the same time as nationally televised live games, the NBA wants to keep fans engaged even if they aren’t interested in the nationally televised game or don’t subscribe to streaming services like Peacock or Prime Video.

But viewership for NBA TV’s flagship studio program is down 65% so far this year, according to Nielsen panel data from the TV Media Blog Substack. It is worth noting that Nielsen officially switched its viewership standard to Big Data + Panel in September 2025. Big Data adds additional viewership from Smart TVs and set top boxes. Importantly, Nielsen’s guidance says to compare Big Data viewership with panel for year over year comparisons. Also, even panel viewership comparisons deserve a caveat, as Nielsen added additional out-of-home viewership to panel numbers this year.

That being said, panel only, in November 2025 weekday primetime editions of The Association averaged 14,000 viewers on NBA TV. Last November, weekday primetime editions of NBA Crunchtime or NBA GameTime averaged 40,000 viewers.

It is worth noting that the show has aired significantly more times this year compared to last year. Under TNT Sports’ operation, NBA TV would not air its live studio programs while TNT was airing games. That said, the least-watched edition of the studio program averaged 27,000 viewers last year, while the most-watched averaged 25,000 viewers this year.

NBA TV viewership does look better when looking at live games. Viewership for live games is up 17% year over year. This November, live NBA games averaged 231,000 viewers. Last year, live games in November averaged 198,000 viewers. It should be noted that last November, NBA TV aired seven more live games. All NBA TV games are blacked out in local markets.

Still, the low studio viewership raises questions about the long-term viability of NBA TV. It doesn’t make sense for NBA TV to staff and produce studio programs for an average audience of 14,000 people.

In press releases, the NBA says it intends to use NBA TV as a way to “guide fans to the must-watch action across the league in real time.” But is an average audience of 14,000 or even 40,000 people really doing that? Furthermore, as people continue to cut cable, there is no reason to believe the audience for these studio programs will meaningfully increase anytime soon.

Non-exclusive NBA games still have value, as the viewership increases this year show. Major League Baseball’s agreement with TBS, for example, primarily features blacked-out games on Tuesday nights. A cable network like USA, which already has an agreement with the WNBA, would certainly benefit from live NBA games. Licensing those games would allow the NBA not to staff little-watched studio programs.

If viewership for studio shows remains at these low levels, the NBA will face tough questions about the financial viability of continuing to operate NBA TV.