NBA TV Ratings Soar as NBC Welcomes Back Basketball
The NBA made a triumphant return to NBC with its season opener, drawing in a big audience—the best in 15 years. A doubleheader on Tuesday pulled in an average of 5.6 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, according to Nielsen’s ratings and internal streaming data. This total includes both games, with the later match-up between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors running well past midnight on the East Coast.
The 5.6 million viewers across platforms mark the highest for an NBA season tipoff since 2010 (excluding the 2011 season, which started on Christmas Day after an owner lockout). That season opener in 2010 averaged 5.7 million viewers on TNT and featured LeBron James’ debut with the Miami Heat. By comparison, last year’s tipoff doubleheader on TNT averaged 2.95 million viewers under a different Nielsen measurement system that did not include big data.
In this week’s games, the first match between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets had an average of 5.9 million cross-platform viewers and reached a peak of 7.1 million viewers as the game went into double overtime. The Lakers-Warriors game brought in 5.1 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, from the time it joined in progress at 11:02 p.m. ET until 12:42 a.m.
Peacock claimed 1 million viewers.
