NBA TV Rates On TNT, ESPN, ABC Up 34% From Last Year, Per Nielsen

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After a well-publicized and politically charged television rankings in the 2019-2020 season, the NBA seems to have kicked back to a level as we approach the quarter-pole of the season regular 2020-2021.

NBA viewers for broadcasts are televised nationally on TNT, ESPN and ABC via tripleheader Martin Luther King Jr. up 34% over the comparable 27-game period from last season, an average of 2.0 million per game against 1.49 million, according to Nielsen Media Research Data released by the league Thursday.

The ranking uptick for the league is welcome news that saw its 2020 NBA Finals rankings decline 51% from the previous year, although they held the series in October due to a pandemic coronavirus delay meaning its competing against the NFL and the presidential election rather than televising the series in the usual June window.

After putting Black Lives Matter on NBA courts in an Orlando bubble over late summer and early fall, getting on his knees during the National Anthem and letting social justice messages be conveyed scratched behind players ’jerseys, the league was under intense scrutiny and ridicule. from Republican lawyers and pundits when his ratings began to sag. But rates were significantly lower across all sports in the first several months of the pandemic.

When the NBA opened its season just before Christmas, it saw a 95% ranking bump from the opening week of late October last year, but that could largely have been the start of the season. -investment with its typical flagship day of television (although binders could link to the reduction in open trends related to social justice). Having viewership numbers still up after a few more weeks of national TV data puts a little more emphasis on reporting the league’s relative ranking recovery.

TNT MLK Day’s trio of games, featuring Phoenix and Memphis, Milwaukee and Brooklyn and Golden State against the LA Lakers champion averaged 1.73 million viewers, up 32% from a tripleheader last January. The late Warriors-Lakers game showed 90% growth from a similar window to 2020.

The NBA also said it is showing solid growth on their League Pass membership service for non-national games, with average minutes on the platform up 18% through MLK days over a comparable number of games from 2019-2020 .

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