The viewership story for the NBA continues to be very positive. Over the weekend, the league delivered its most-watched opening weekend for the playoffs on ABC and ESPN in eleven years. One game stood out above the others, as the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets delivered the largest audience for a first-round game in six years.
Jayson Tatum’s buzzer-beating lay-in provided an exciting finish. That is around the time the audience for the ABC broadcast peaked with 9.85 million viewers. On the whole, the game averaged just under 7 million viewers. The Lakers and Suns played in the comparable window last season. The 2022 audience 51% larger.
ESPN and ABC carried five of the eight games of the playoffs’ opening weekend. The two games on ABC averaged an audience of over 5.7 million viewers per game. The three games on ESPN drew an average audience larger than 3 million. Both numbers are more than 30% better than the same weekend in 2021.
