Heading into the final day of group play action on Tuesday, the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament has seen impressive viewership across the league’s national media partners compared to regular season games a year ago.
Per the Sports Business Journal, six ESPN tournament games airing on Fridays are averaging 1.58 million viewers, a 24% increase from five regular season Friday games last season. Four Tuesday tournament games on TNT are averaging 1.32 million viewers this year a 7% increase from last season’s Tuesday night average for November games.
Data for the final two Friday night games, airing on November 24, was not available yet.
Through the first chunk of the NBA season, viewership nationally is up a healthy 12%.
While the overall increases are interesting enough, the samples are small enough for them to be written off as mere noise. The good news for the NBA, ESPN, and TNT is that the In-Season Tournament hasn’t had a negative effect on interest in the league through the end of November, despite some criticism from national pundits.
The final day of group play action takes place on Tuesday, November 28 with a pair of games (Bucks-Heat, Warriors-Kings) airing on TNT. The quarterfinals will take place on December 4 and 5, followed by the semifinals on December 7 and the championship on December 9. TNT will air all four quarterfinal games and one semifinal game, with the other semifinal airing on ESPN and the championship airing on ABC.
