Overview
- The NBA, which announced Thursday a 3.91 million average per game across ABC, ESPN, NBC/Peacock and Prime Video, said the first round is the most watched since 1993.
- Added over-the-air windows on NBC have lifted audiences, with NBCUniversal averaging 5.1 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics through its first 10 games, up 53% versus comparable windows last year.
- Under the new rights deals, many games moved from non-exclusive cable to exclusive broadcast and regional sports networks no longer carry first-round games, pushing more fans to national telecasts and increasing reported national totals.
- Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel methodology and fuller out-of-home counting are now in place, and outlet-to-outlet averages vary by what is counted, with independent tallies around 3.84 million versus the league’s 3.91 million.
- Audience splits have widened between platforms, as over-the-air NBC and ABC windows deliver the largest crowds while several streaming exclusives on Prime Video rank among the smallest, including a Raptors–Cavaliers game measured at 560,000 viewers.