The NBA has continued to enjoy higher TV ratings as the playoffs continue with the L.A. Lakers and LeBron James sitting on the sidelines, down and out of contention.
For now, the league’s three years of bottom-dwelling TV ratings have come to an end, and the NBA Playoffs have been earning record ratings, besting decades of dismal showings.
The first few games had already resulted in the best ratings in 20 years, and that good fortune seems to have continued as the games rolled on to the final championship contest.
On Sunday, the Warriors-Grizzlies game recorded its best Game 1 semifinal in eleven years, according to Sports Media Watch.
“Sunday’s Warriors-Grizzlies second round NBA playoff Game 1,” the site noted, “averaged a 4.1 rating and 7.71 million viewers on ABC, marking the largest audience for a semifinal opener since Celtics-Heat in 2011 (9.17M) and the highest rated and most-watched NBA telecast outside of the Finals since Clippers-Lakers on Christmas Day 2019 (4.6, 8.76M).”
It was also the largest audience that the Memphis Grizzlies ever played for, beating the 7.14 million who tuned in to watch their Game 7 in the 2011 playoffs.
Sunday’s doubleheader games on ABC also hit a 3.0 rating for the first time since 2018 (excluding Christmas games).
Indeed, every NBA game from the weekend through Monday saw a rise in viewership, many by double digits. And some of the numbers that Sports Media Watch reported may even go up once the Nielsen numbers are reported.
The reason for the NBA’s good fortunes can’t necessarily be pinpointed. All we can say is that the common denominator for all these higher ratings is the complete absence of LeBron James and the relative lack of overt political protests.
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