Ratings for Game 7 of the NLCS and the Georgia-Alabama college football game individually beat every one of the six NBA Finals games, Outkick the Coverage reports.
On Saturday, the Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama Crimson Tide game earned an average 9.611 million viewers and had as high as 12.046 at its peak, giving the game a three percent higher audience than the comparable game last season. It also rolled in as the most-watched college game this season, according to Outkick.
As to baseball, NLCS Game 7 featuring the Atlanta Braves and L.A. Dodgers averaged 9.662 million viewers on a Fox/FS1 simulcast, the site noted.
Both games beat every single NBA game.
The best ratings the NBA Finals achieved was Game 5’s 8.89 million viewers. Even Game 6, the game that LeBron James and the Lakers clinched the 2020 championships, only earned 8.29 million viewers.
So, an early-season college football game and a baseball league championship game (a game that shared the night with the NFL) beat every game in the NBA’s biggest series this year.
Outkick did note a few caveats. The NCLS game was simulcast on two networks, Fox and FS1, so it had two pools of viewers from which to draw. Both college football and Major League Baseball are still in their regular seasonal time frames. And the NBA had to compete out of its usual season with both baseball and college football. Still, it was basketball’s biggest games and they could not draw the numbers.
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