NBA Eastern Conference Finals viewership unsurprisingly down for Celtics sweep
The Celtics' sweep doomed the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Celtics' sweep doomed the Eastern Conference Finals.
The NBA saw huge declines in ratings on Christmas Day while the NFL continued to see its viewership numbers soar.
The NFL had 23 of the top 25 most-watched sporting events of 2023 so far.
An average of 11.9 million people watched Monday's Game 7.
The ABC broadcast of Kings-Warriors Game 4 Sunday averaged 7.5 million viewers.
In this media climate, "flat" isn't a bad thing.
The NBA did quite well on Sunday.
The game averaged 4.59 million viewers across TNT and TBS.
The Lakers and Warriors drew the best audience for a play-in game so far.
These were the best Opening Night viewership numbers for TNT since the Cavs-Celtics and Warriors-Rockets doubleheader in 2017.
Lakers-Heat averaged 7.41 million viewers, the lowest number ever recorded for a NBA Finals game (based on data going back to 1988).
The news isn't all bad, though.
The only higher-viewed regular-season game ever on ESPN was Lakers-Rockets in 2003, the first game between Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming.
"All of our national broadcasts are exclusively available on cable, which is losing subs daily."
Williamson is out six to eight weeks, which is not great for the Pelicans' upcoming lineup of national TV appearances.
The average audience of 6.9 million viewers (English and French) here broke a lot of Canadian sports viewership marks, and even beat the Canadian audience for The Big Bang Theory's series finale.
This year's NBA Finals continues to not produce great U.S. numbers.
The Western Conference Finals didn't look great from a market standpoint, but wound up being a ratings win for ESPN even with only four games.
A number of large market teams saw declines this season.
While 15 of the 28 RSNs considered in a Sports Business Journal analysis are up from last year, there's still an average audience drop thanks to some big losses.
It's been the early half of doubleheaders that's been hit particularly hard, and LeBron being in the West is a factor there.
The game was the highest-rated of the season on any network.
The NBA is one a roll.
Opening-round games averaged 3.15 million viewers across the five networks that aired them nationally.