TNT Sports secured the top audience on cable television since Opening Night of the NBA season for its presentation of the Los Angeles Lakers game against the Dallas Mavericks from Crypto.com Arena. As Lakers guard Luka Dončić garnered a triple-double while facing his former team for the first time since being traded to Southern California, the game averaged 2.5 million viewers on TNT, truTV and Max. The game peaked with 2.9 million viewers during the 10:30 p.m. EST quarter-hour and was the most-watched NBA regular-season telecast on the Max streaming platform of all time. Moreover, the Lakers-Mavericks game broadcast won the night within the Persons 18-34, Persons 25-54 and Adults under 50 demographics.
According to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, the last regular-season NBA game that averaged more viewers on cable television was when the Lakers faced the Oklahoma City Thunder in February 2023. This game, which also featured play-by-play announcer Brian Anderson on the call, averaged 2.98 million viewers as Lakers forward LeBron James broke the NBA all-time scoring record. Pertaining to this season, the Lakers have played in six of the 13 most-watched games of the year, which is the most among any team in the league.
Despite the storylines surrounding the contest, this is not the highest viewership average for the Lakers in the last week. ESPN NBA Saturday Primetime on the ABC broadcast television network averaged 2.87 million viewers when the team defeated the Denver Nuggets. This game peaked with 3.35 million viewers at 10:45 p.m. EST and was up 29% from the comparable matchup in the previous season. The Lakers have won three consecutive games and currently occupy the fifth seed in the Western Conference playoff standings, avoiding an appearance in the SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament.
Entering the second half of the regular season, viewership of TNT Sports national television broadcasts of NBA games had been down by 11%. The game marked the third instance through which a TNT Sports presentation has ranked within the top-13 most-watched NBA contests of the year, and the first instance of which since Opening Night. As a whole, national NBA television viewership at the half was down 5% from the previous season.
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