Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Americans enjoy watching sports.
Just past the halfway point of 2023, Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch took a look at the 50 most-watched sporting events of the year so far. The results weren’t exactly surprising as the NFL had 23 of the top 25 most-watched sporting events of 2023 so far. The most watched event of the year thus far was, of course, the Super Bowl followed by the AFC and NFC Championship Games.
Perhaps an even more noteworthy trend, however, is that the NBA and NFL dominated with 37 of the top 50 watched sporting events of 2023. The NBA wasn’t included in the top 25, as the only non-NFL sporting events that were among the most watched were the College Football Playoff National Championship (No. 22) and the Men’s NCAA Tournament National Championship (No. 24).
The NBA didn’t appear until No. 28 on the list, as Game 5 of the NBA Finals was the most-watched professional basketball event of the year. That was followed by Eastern Conference Finals Game 7 (No. 31), NBA Finals Game 2 (No. 32), NBA Finals Game 1 (No. 34), and NBA Finals Game 4 (No. 38) rounded out the top-40.
Not a single NBA regular season game appeared on this list, which isn’t exactly surprising, however, the league touted that the playoffs as a whole averaged 5.47 million viewers, the most-watched playoffs in five years.
The NBA took up 12 spots in the top 50, so it’ll be interesting to see if it can sneak into the second half of the most-watched sporting event rankings with some regular season games to finish out 2023.
