NBA regular-season viewership remained steady once again among national media partners, with games averaging 1.6 million viewers across TNT, ABC and ESPN. The league has hit that mark for three consecutive seasons.
During the 2020-21 campaign, when the regular season began just before Christmas and ended in mid-May, the average was 1.4 million. For the COVID-shortened 2019-20 season, the league averaged 1.6 million as well. For the season prior to the pandemic (2018-19), the NBA averaged 1.8 million. The league for the second straight season also saw a record figure for share on U.S. airwaves (that’s the percentage of viewers tuned in for NBA games out of the total number of viewers watching linear TV).
TNT once again averaged around 1.4 million viewers for its games (with some alt-casts on truTV). ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 was at 1.7 million (also a number of simulcasts and alt-casts included, such as on Christmas Day or Kevin Hart-led broadcasts). NBA games also helped ESPN and TNT to cable TV prime-time wins among adults under the age of 50 on 67 of 76 nights.
NBA TV (not included in the national average) averaged 330,000 viewers per game this season, which is the cable network’s best figure since 2015-16 (345,000), and second-best since NBA TV became a Nielsen-rated network.
Included in regular-season numbers this year was the debut of the NBA In-Season Tournament, which averaged 1.7 million viewers in the fall across ABC, ESPN, TNT, TBS and truTV. Play-In Tournament games are not included.
LeBron James continued to show his drawing power, with the Lakers playing in seven of the 10 most-watched games this season. A Christmas Day matchup against the Celtics led the way with 5 million viewers, followed by the team’s In-Season Tournament win over the Pacers at No. 2 with 4.6 million. The Warriors put four games into the top 10 this season. The only game in the top 10 not involving the Lakers or Warriors was Victor Wembanyama’s debut game with the Spurs (against the Mavericks) in late October (No. 7 overall at just less than 3 million viewers).
