The NBA’s purported ratings demise was much ado about nothing.
After a rough start to the season, when viewership cratered by about 20% year over year, the NBA rebounded to draw nearly even with last season’s numbers.
According to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, national NBA viewership is down just 2% compared to last season across ABC, ESPN, and TNT. Accounting for NBA TV, which had a particularly rough season from a viewership perspective, that decline increases to 5%. Regular season matchups averaged 1.53 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, and TNT.
The most critical factor in the NBA’s ratings rebound was Christmas Day. The league posted its most-watched Christmas Day in five years thanks to expanding its ABC schedule from just two games last season to five games this season. It was only the second time the league had placed all five games of its Christmas Day slate on broadcast television, with the other instance being 2022. That alone erased nearly all of the NBA’s ratings slump versus last season.
But that’s not to discount other factors that helped the NBA recover from its November and December doldrums. A bonkers trade deadline highlighted by the blockbuster deal that sent Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers certainly provided a mid-season boost to the league. Per Lewis, games played following the trade deadline increased by 16% versus the pre-deadline average.
That deadline also coincided with Nielsen’s expansion of out-of-home viewing measurements, which have provided a sizeable boost to all live sports properties since February.
ABC had the best year out of all the networks. Games on the Disney-owned broadcast channel averaged 2.68 million viewers, up 10% versus last year, no doubt aided by the three additional Christmas games back in December. On the other hand, TNT declined by 7% compared to last season, down to 1.3 million viewers per telecast in its final year of airing live NBA games. NBA TV declined a stark 24% to 250,000 viewers per game, which dragged the league’s overall average down substantially.
The NBA’s slight decline looks favorable compared to its peer leagues. For instance, NFL regular-season viewership declined 2% last season. College basketball was down 7% in its regular season, and the NHL is down 13%.
Next year will mark the first of the league’s new 11-year agreements with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon. That stability for the next decade should make the league insulated from any sort of ups and downs in the ratings these next few seasons. But one could anticipate that viewership will increase regardless, given that the number of game windows on broadcast networks will go up significantly in the new deal.