The NBA’s TV ratings are crashing after LeBron James and Anthony Davis both ended up on the injury list this month.
Ratings for the Lakers were particularly bad with James on the sidelines thanks to an ankle sprain. The Lakers blowout loss to the New Orleans Pelicans averaged 920,000 viewers on TNT, which is down 35% from 1.41 million viewers who tuned in to see the Rockets-Bucks on a comparable night in 2019, according to Sports Media Watch.
Tuesday’s game was the least-watched Lakers game since James joined the team in 2018. The previous low was the 970,000 viewers for 2019’s Lakers-Jazz game that James also missed.
James’ injury which has put him on the injured list indefinitely is reportedly bad enough that he may miss up to nine games.
For his part, Anthony Davis, who was reported with a severe calf strain, is expected to return to play sooner than James. No definite timeline has been reported, but the team hopes his downtime will only be about four weeks.
The Lakers are not the only team experiencing a loss of viewers. most of the NBA’s games have been down double digits.
Per SMW:
In other recent NBA action, ESPN drew a 0.7 rating (-26%) and 1.15 million viewers (-17%) for Clippers-Mavericks and a 0.6 (-41%) and 931,000 (-37%) for Bucks-Sixers last Wednesday. TNT the previous night had a 0.6 and 1.03 million for Jazz-Celtics and a 0.6 and 983,000 for Pelicans-Blazers. Preceding the aforementioned Lakers-Warriors game on March 15, ESPN drew a 0.7 (-35%) and 1.13 million (-36%) for Knicks-Nets. Finally, Clipper
SMW used Nielsen ratings upon which to base its report.
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