Cavaliers-Celtics on Sunday marked ESPN's second-best NBA figure on recordNBAE/GETTY IMAGES
The NBA heads into the fourth straight Cavaliers-Warriors Finals averaging its best playoff viewership since ’12. TNT, ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and NBA TV are averaging 4.6 million viewers for 77 telecasts to date, which is the best figure since 4.9 million viewers over 79 telecasts in ’12. Both of those years featured a LeBron James-led team taking on the Celtics in a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals. Overall, the playoffs have won the night on cable TV nearly 92% of the time (34 of 37 nights). This year’s conference finals (ECF and WCF), which both went to a Game 7, averaged just under 9 million viewers. That also is the best mark for the conference finals since ’12, when there was one less game in the Thunder-Spurs WCF on TNT. For TNT through the conference finals, the net averaged 4.9 million viewers, its best mark since ’11. For ESPN, the cable net averaged 5.1 million viewers, which is its best mark since it began airing NBA Playoffs games in ’03.
|
NBA PLAYOFF VIEWERSHIP THROUGH CONFERENCE FINALS (ACROSS ALL NETWORKS)
|
|
YEAR
|
AVG. VIEWERS (000)
|
|
'18
|
4,640
|
|
'17
|
3,954
|
|
'16
|
4,176
|
|
'15
|
4,056
|
|
'14
|
4,286
|
|
'13
|
4,173
|
|
'12
|
4,899
|
LUCKY NUMBER SEVEN: Warriors-Rockets WCF Game 7 on Monday night finished with 14.8 million viewers, marking the second-best figure for an NBA game in cable TV history. It is behind only the net’s 16 million viewers for Warriors-Thunder WCF Game 7 two years ago. Warriors-Rockets also led into “Inside The NBA,” which averaged 5.7 million viewers -- good enough for the show’s second-best figure on record. Meanwhile, ESPN averaged 13.3 million viewers for Cavs-Celtics on Sunday night, marking the cable net’s second-best NBA figure on record, but that could change with out-of-home figures once those are factored in. Cavs-Celtics (13.305 million) is just below the Heat-Celtics ECF Game 7 in ’12 (13.346 million).
