While the NBA All-Star Game saw a year-over-year rise in viewership on TNT/TBS, the game did not win the night last Sunday. AMC aired the midseason premiere for “The Walking Dead” up against the game, drawing 13.74 million viewers, which was 80% higher than the combined ASG average. The year-over-year gain for the ASG was still notable for the league, as it moved from N.Y. last year (No. 1 media market) to Toronto this year (not Nielsen measured). Meanwhile, NBA All-Star Saturday Night, which featured a well-received Dunk Contest, finished with its lowest viewership since ’10, when the event went up against the Vancouver Olympics. TNT on Friday night also had the Rising Stars Challenge, drawing 1.33 million viewers. That is the lowest viewership for the game featuring sophomores vs. rookies in at least a decade. Earlier on Friday night, ESPN drew 2.04 million viewers for the NBA All-Star Celebrity game, up from 1.79 million last year. However, the audience is below what the game drew from ’10-14. In ’09, the game drew 1.82 million viewers.
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NBA ALL-STAR FRIDAY NIGHT AUDIENCE TREND
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YEAR
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CELEBRITY GAME
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VIEWERS (000)
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RISING STARS
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VIEWERS (000)
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'16
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ESPN
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2,043
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TNT
|
1,325
|
|
'15
|
ESPN
|
1,787
|
TNT
|
1,559
|
|
'14
|
ESPN
|
2,451
|
TNT
|
1,779
|
|
'13
|
ESPN
|
2,263
|
TNT
|
1,897
|
|
'12
|
ESPN
|
2,360
|
TNT
|
2,729
|
|
'11
|
ESPN
|
2,358
|
TNT
|
2,440
|
| |
|
|
|
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NUMBERS GAME: NBA TV saw a 33% jump in viewership for its ASG programming this year, including the net’s most-viewed episode of “NBA Inside Stuff” on record last Saturday. There were also a record 244 million videos viewed during ASG weekend on NBA.com and the NBA app. NBAStore.com also had record sales during All-Star week, with sales up 25% from last year. In Canada, TSN aired the ASG on Sunday, with Sportsnet simulcasting. The two nets combined for the best NBA ASG telecast in Canada since ’96.
SOCIAL CLUB: While linear viewership was better for “The Walking Dead,” data from Nielsen Social shows that the Dunk Contest on Saturday night was far more popular on Twitter. There were 43,500 tweets sent out when T’Wolves G Zach LaVine won the dunk contest on Saturday at 10:36pm ET, which was the peak tweeting moment during All-Star Saturday. That compares to a peak of 30,600 tweets sent out during Sunday's “The Walking Dead.” The peak for the ASG on Sunday night was 15,300 tweets sent out at the end of the game, when Warriors G Stephen Curry converted a half-court shot at the buzzer. Meanwhile, data from Facebook shows that as of Thursday afternoon, there were 27.4 million video views for the NBA’s video highlights from the Slam Dunk competition, marking the platform’s most-viewed NBA video ever. Overall, 1.7 million tweets on Twitter included NBA All-Star and Turner Sports hashtag-triggered emojis. There were a record 3.1 billion impressions and 453 million video views of NBA All-Star content (Feb. 12-15) were generated across social platforms.
