Overview
- Monday’s Spurs–Thunder Western Conference Finals Game 1 averaged about 9.2 million viewers and peaked near 12 million during the second overtime, making it the largest Game 1 audience for a West final on record.
- Through the first two rounds the playoffs averaged roughly 4.5 million viewers per game, a reported 16% increase versus last year and the highest midway postseason average since the late 1990s.
- Nielsen’s shift to a Big Data plus panel methodology, fuller out‑of‑home counting, and the inclusion of smart‑TV data have raised measured TV totals compared with past methods.
- The turn to national broadcast windows drove much of the gains, with NBC airing most early playoff games and averaging the largest combined Nielsen plus Adobe Analytics audiences so far.
- Streaming partners have posted milestone telecasts and drawn younger viewers, but differences in how streams are counted mean historical and cross‑platform comparisons remain hard to make.