The NBA Finals returned to Madison Square Garden for the first time since 1999 on Monday, and the result was the largest television audience the NBA has seen in nearly a decade.
Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs averaged 23.8 million viewers across ABC and ESPN on Monday, marking the largest audience for Game 3 of the NBA Finals since 1998, and the most-watched NBA game across any series or network since 2017. The Spurs’ win to cut the Knicks’ series lead to 2-1 peaked at 26.3 million viewers in the 11:15 p.m. ET quarter-hour. Compared to last year’s lackluster NBA Finals audience, Game 3 increased by 159% (9.19 million viewers for Thunder-Pacers).
Per ESPN, Monday’s game was the largest television audience since Super Bowl LX on NBC in February.
ABC averaged 22.7 million viewers for the traditional broadcast of the game, which featured play-by-play announcer Mike Breen alongside analysts Richard Jefferson and Tim Legler, while ESPN averaged 1.1 million viewers for NBA Finals All-Access with The Pat McAfee Show, an alternate presentation of the game.
The Spurs’ win was the most-watched NBA game in nearly a decade. One would have to go all the way back to Game 5 of the 2017 NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers to find a larger audience (24.47 million viewers).
Game 3 was also a significantly larger draw than either of Games 1 or 2, perhaps due to the MSG factor. Game 1 averaged 16.93 million viewers, while Game 2 averaged 16.43 million viewers. Granted, the first two games do not include viewership from an altcast on ESPN, but even if an altcast chipped in another million to the totals, those games would still be several million short of Game 3.
The series is now averaging 19.1 million viewers per game. If that pace can hold, this series would be the most-watched since the aforementioned 2017 series. However, a few more audiences like Monday’s and this series could conceivably become the most-watched NBA Finals series since Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls beat the Utah Jazz 4-2 in 1998.
It is important to note, this is the first NBA Finals to be measured using Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel standard, which tends to increase audiences for live sports compared to prior years. Of course, the increases seen so far in this series are far beyond what could be attributed solely to Nielsen’s methodological changes.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.