The NBA’s audience on local television reached its highest level in five years during the 2023-24 season, and was up eight percent from last season.
Per the Sports Business Journal, 17 of the league’s 27 measured teams (excluding the Canada-based Raptors and both the Hornets and Grizzlies, whose games air on Bally Sports South subfeeds) were up from a year ago, while 10 were down.
The gains were led, somewhat surprisingly, by the reigning NBA champion Denver Nuggets. The surprise isn’t related to the Nuggets, who won their first title last June and only missed out on the Western Conference’s top seed this season due to tiebreakers, but rather their regional sports network (RSN) home.
Nuggets games air on Altitude in the Denver market, which has been dealing with a lengthy and embarrassing carriage battle. Comcast dropped Altitude way back in 2019 (along with Dish and DirecTV, the latter of which readded it after a month), and still hasn’t struck a new deal with the RSN.
Despite Comcast still not carrying Altitude, Nuggets games on the RSN were up 123 percent this season.
The Minnesota Timberwolves saw the league’s second-largest gain, increasing 111 percent on Bally Sports North.
The two teams that jumped from an RSN to broadcast television also saw huge jumps. Moving from Bally Sports Arizona to the Gray-owned Arizona’s Family, Phoenix Suns games spiked by 69 percent. Despite a poor season, Utah Jazz games increased by 39 percent after moving from AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain to Sinclair-owned KJZZ.
Finally, one of the league’s marquee teams in its biggest market rounded out the top five, much to the NBA’s pleasure. New York Knicks games were up 10 percent on MSG this season en route to the team claiming the Eastern Conference’s #2 seed.
On the other side of the coin, Portland Trail Blazers games cratered by 60% on Root Sports Northwest as the team sunk to last place in the Western Conference. Blazers local ratings were not helped by Comcast’s decision last year to move its RSN to a higher-tier package.
Brooklyn Nets games fell by 41 percent on YES Network this season, perhaps in part to the Knicks’ success. And during their first season on the rebranded Monumental Network, Washington Wizards games sunk by 37 percent (though a coding issue reportedly impacted the viewing figures for both Wizards and Capitals games on the RSN this season).
The Chicago Bulls and Golden State Warriors also saw modest decreases for their middling seasons, with Bulls games falling by 17% on NBC Sports Chicago and Warriors games sliding by 14% on NBC Sports Bay Areas.
Notably, none of these viewing figures take viewing on several direct-to-consumer (DTC) platforms into account. The Jazz, Suns, and Wizards, among others, all launched their own services this season. While subscription information for many of these services was never reported, the Jazz revealed in March that their Jazz+ services had attracted over 20,000 subscriptions to date. At the time, the team also said its local viewership was up 53 percent.
The strong results seen by both the Suns and Jazz should help ease the potential fears of other teams potentially jumping from cable to broadcast. While rights fees will be likely be lower in these situations, it seems like the tradeoff in reaching far more potential viewers and having vastly more fans watch live games is worth it.
