The NBA Finals hit a series-high for a third-straight game, but there was barely any growth from Game 4 to Game 5.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s Pacers-Thunder NBA Finals Game 5 averaged a series-high 9.54 million viewers on ABC, down 22% from last year\u2019s Mavericks-Celtics clincher (12.22M) and the least-watched Game 5 of the Finals since Heat-Lakers in the fall 2020 \u201cbubble,\u201d which aired on a Friday night in October (9.19M). Excluding that anomalous circumstance, it was the least-watched Game 5 since Spurs-Nets on a Friday night in 2003 (9.31M).<\/p>\n
No other Game 5 in the Nielsen people meter era (1988-present) has fallen short of the ten million mark.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City\u2019s win peaked with 10.91 million in the 11 PM ET quarter-hour, the second-lowest peak of the series, despite Indiana at one point narrowing the lead to two points in the fourth quarter. Viewership peaked at 12 million in Game 4, 11.5 million in Game 3 and 11.1 million in Game 1. Only Game 2 \u2014 which the Thunder won easily \u2014 had a lower peak, 9.9 million.<\/p>\n
Game 5 viewership increased only 1% from Friday\u2019s Game 4 (9.41M). Not counting 2021 \u2014 when Game 5 aired on a Saturday night and actually declined from Game 4 \u2014 that is the smallest bump from Game 4 to Game 5 of the Finals since 2013.<\/p>\n
Through five games, the NBA Finals is now averaging 9.18 million viewers on ABC \u2014 down 19% from last year\u2019s full five-game average of 11.3 million and the least-watched Finals at this point of the series since the \u201cbubble.\u201d<\/p>\n
It should be noted that the percentage of homes using television is down 13 percent from a year ago, compared to single-digit declines last year, though that does not fully explain the 19 percent drop for this year\u2019s series. The Finals accounts for the five largest TV audiences since the first week of May.<\/p>\n
Dating back to last year, six of the past seven NBA Finals games have fallen below the ten million mark. Pacers-Thunder has now had more games with fewer than ten million viewers (all five) than any other Finals outside of the \u201cbubble.\u201d<\/p>\n
The closest recent analogue to Pacers-Thunder, Rangers-Diamondbacks in the 2023 World Series, got to 11.45 million in its clinching Game 5. That series averaged slightly fewer viewers through five games (9.11M), though it should be noted Nielsen has expanded its out-of-home viewing sample since then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA Finals hit a series-high for a third-straight game, but there was barely any growth from Game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,113,126,3866,6,18121,2528,353,114],"class_list":{"0":"post-106612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-indiana","10":"tag-indiana-pacers","11":"tag-indianapacers","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-finals-tv-ratings","14":"tag-nba-on-abc","15":"tag-nba-ratings","16":"tag-pacers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114702971279393781","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}