Overview
- National telecasts averaged 1.78 million viewers across ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock and Prime Video, up 16% for the most-watched regular season in seven years.
- Total U.S. reach across those partners and NBA TV was reported at 170 million viewers, an 86% increase from last season.
- A rights shift put 62 games on ABC and NBC versus 19 a year ago, which outlets cite as the clearest reason for higher linear audiences.
- Nielsen changed its measurement midseason to include more out-of-home viewing and Big Data samples, making clean year-over-year comparisons harder.
- Streaming grew in importance, as Prime Video matched linear peaks with a 3.07 million-viewer NBA Cup final yet suffered a short outage during a play-in overtime.