Overview
- The league, which released season figures Wednesday, said 170 million U.S. viewers watched games and national telecasts averaged 1.78 million, up 86% and 16% year over year.
- NBC’s return lifted audiences, with its game windows averaging 2.8 million viewers, a 109% jump, and its Sunday night package averaging 3.4 million to lead all weekly windows.
- Amazon’s Prime Video averaged about 1.0 million viewers across 67 games and drew a younger crowd, though its first postseason stream cut out for nearly two minutes during Tuesday’s Hornets‑Heat play‑in overtime.
- All figures use Nielsen’s newer Big Data + Panel system, which blends traditional panels with set‑top box and smart‑TV data, and NBC’s streaming totals also include Adobe Analytics, complicating direct comparisons to past seasons.
- The new $76 billion rights package added roughly 75 national games and shifted more contests to broadcast TV, helping drive 920 million-plus hours watched and a record 228 billion social video views.