The Warriors' Western Conference Finals-clinching Game 5 win over the Rockets on Wednesday averaged 8.9 million viewers on ESPN, making it the most-watched NBA Playoffs game on any network this season. The game also was the most-watched NBA contest on ESPN since Game 7 of the '12 Heat-Celtics Eastern Conference Finals, and marked ESPN's second-most viewed telecast of the year behind the inaugural CFP Championship. ESPN finished with an average of 7.36 million viewers overall for the five-game series, up from 7.23 million for the six-game Heat-Pacers East Final last year, which aired on both ESPN and ABC. In '13, ABC/ESPN averaged 4.90 million viewers for the Spurs' sweep of the Grizzlies.
A CAVALIER EFFORT: TNT finished with an average of 6.8 million viewers for the Cavaliers’ sweep of the Hawks in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, flat compared to the net’s six-game Spurs-Thunder series last year. Looking at solely four games, Cavs-Hawks was trending 7% ahead of Spurs-Thunder. Two years ago, TNT averaged 8.4 million viewers for a seven-game Heat-Pacers series. The Cavs’ series-clinching win on Tuesday averaged 6.3 million viewers, including a 35.9 local rating in Cleveland-Akron. That local rating marks TNT’s highest figure on record for a Cavs game in the market. During each night of the ECF, the Cavs-Hawks game and the subsequent “Inside the NBA” telecast were the two most-viewed programs of the night across all of cable TV. Meanwhile, data from Nielsen Social shows each Cavs-Hawks game ranked as the most-discussed program of the night across all TV on Twitter. Streaming for the four games was up 74% for live stream starts, 71% in total minutes consumed and 56% in uniques over ’14.
