Warriors-Cavs Big For Early Christmas Window, But Down From '15

ABC on Christmas Day had an NBA Finals rematch – Warriors-Cavaliers – in the early afternoon slot (2:30pm ET), drawing 10.1 million viewers, which is down from the same matchup in the late afternoon Christmas slot last year (11.2 million viewers). However, that marks the best early Christmas Day window in 12 years. It also was ABC’s fifth-best NBA regular-season audience on record. ABC had Bulls-Spurs in the late afternoon window this year, but figures for that game were not available at presstime. In the 12:00pm window, ESPN aired Celtics-Knicks, drawing 3.69 million viewers. That is the league’s best figure in that slot since Celtics-Nets drew 3.74 million viewers in '12.