ESPN drew a 2.4 overnight rating for the NBA Draft on Thursday night, marking the event's lowest since '12. The event drew a 3.1 overnight the past two iterations, which are records for the telecast. Louisville led all markets last night with a 6.5 local rating. The top five markets were rounded out by Philadelphia (5.0), Memphis (4.6), Raleigh-Durham (4.2) and Oklahoma City (3.5). Meanwhile, WatchESPN drew 557,000 unique viewers on Thursday night, marking an NBA Draft record for the streaming platform. The '14 Draft saw 448,000 uniques (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor). In L.A., Ben Bolch writes there "was zero suspense when it came to the top two picks." The snooze factor "ebbed a bit from there" (L.A. TIMES, 6/24).
THOSE MILLENIALS: Duke F Brandon Ingram, the No. 2 overall pick in the Draft by the Lakers, ranked No. 1 for social media pickups among the top players selected last night. Ingram gained more followers on Twitter and Instagram in the past week than the other top picks, including No. 1 overall pick Ben Simmons. Simmons still has more follows on each platform, but Ingram’s gains were larger. For example, Ingram saw his following on Twitter increase by more than 77%, as he gained 36,900 followers in the seven-day span and now boasts 84,400 followers. Simmons saw a 37.5% increase on the same platform, gaining 33,000 followers to move his total following to 121,000. On Instagram, Ingram again led the charge, gaining 81,000 followers to bring his new total to 294,000, up 38%. Simmons gained 48,000 followers (10.2%) to now have a base of 518,000 followers. The No. 5 overall pick, Kris Dunn, was the runaway Twitter winner by percentage. Dunn more than tripled his Twitter following, scoring a 242% increase as the T'Wolves pick saw his follower number increase from 3,600 last week to 12,300 Friday. Facebook data was not measured as only seven of 40 Draft prospects examined had official accounts (Drew Nantais, Editorial Assistant).
