Sports leagues will take wins where they can and the latest news about the national viewership for the NBA is a win — however small it may be. National NBA viewership is up 1 percent compared to last year, with games broadcasting on NBA TV up 31 percent en route to what would be its best year since 2017-18.
According to Sports Business Journal, the audience for games across ABC, ESPN, and TNT have averaged around 1.62 million viewers to date, up 1 percent from just under 1.6 million at the same point last season. SBJ’s Austin Karp says some experimental schedule-making may be the root cause for the viewership rise.
The NBA scheduled Wednesday primetime games on ABC starting in Jan., which resulted in greater viewership compared to Wednesday games on ESPN. Also, the In-Season Tournament increased regular season viewership nationally thanks to its games as well as locally, where regional markets are up five percent across the board compared to last year. This year’s IST championship game was the NBA’s most-watched non-Christmas Day game since 2018.
As for each network, according to Karp, ESPN viewership is up 3 percent from last year and NBA Countdown is up 14 percent. While TNT game telecasts are down two percent from last year (due to last year’s push to broadcast LeBron James’ scoring title chase), the popular studio show Inside the NBA is up four percent after games, while TNT’s pregame show is up 26 percent.
Lastly, Karp provides the top-10 NBA broadcasts so far this season. Unsurprisingly, the Lakers and Warriors factor heavily into them, with the Lakers appearing five times and the Warriors four, followed by many other top draws like the Celtics, Nuggets, Suns and 76ers. The only outlier is the Nov. 25 matchup between the Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs, which happened to be first-overall pick Victor Wembanyama’s debut game.
