Not too long ago the marquee attraction in the NBA, Lakers-Warriors was the least-watched of the four NBA games on broadcast television last weekend.<\/p>\n
Lakers-Warriors averaged a 1.2 rating and 2.18 million viewers on the latest edition of ABC\u2019s \u201cNBA Saturday Primetime,\u201d marking the teams\u2019 least-watched matchup on ABC (15 total). Keep in mind that all-but-one of those meetings have come since LeBron James joined the Lakers in 2018 (the exception was the 17-win Lakers\u2019 upset of the 73-win Warriors in 2016).<\/p>\n
The two least-watched Lakers-Warriors games on ABC have come this season, with their previous matchup three weeks earlier averaging 2.47 million. As is no coincidence, Warriors G Stephen Curry missed both games due to injury. But the last time the teams met on ABC without Curry in the lineup \u2014 February 2023 \u2014 viewership was considerably stronger at 3.05 million.<\/p>\n
None of the three Lakers-Warriors games this season have featured both James and Curry. The teams meet once more this season, in April on Prime Video.<\/p>\n
Notably, Lakers-Warriors was the least-watched of the weekend\u2019s four NBA games on broadcast television. ABC on Sunday averaged a 1.5 and 2.74 million for Timberwolves-Nuggets and a 1.3 and 2.48 million for Spurs-Knicks. On NBC\u2019s \u201cSunday Night Basketball,\u201d Sixers-Celtics averaged a Nielsen-measured 1.5 and 2.62 million on NBC alone, with viewership rising to 3.2 million including a Spanish-language audience on Telemundo and streaming audience measured by Adobe Analytics.<\/p>\n
It was also the only one of those broadcast TV windows to decline from last year, dropping 11% from Warriors-Sixers on the same weekend last year \u2014 a closer game, but also one that featured a 20-38 Philadelphia team. <\/p>\n
By comparison, Spurs-Knicks increased 9% from Nuggets-Celtics last year (2.27M). (ABC carried only one game on the equivalent day last year due to the Academy Awards.) And on both a Nielsen-only and combined basis, \u201cSunday Night Basketball\u201d soared past last year\u2019s equivalent ESPN windows, Thunder-Spurs (1.19M) and Timberwolves-Suns (1.09M).<\/p>\n
In other NBA action, Friday\u2019s Nuggets-Thunder game averaged a 1.0 and 1.80 million on ESPN, preceded by Cavaliers-Pistons at a 0.8 and 1.54 million \u2014 both down from last year\u2019s pairings of Clippers-Lakers (1.89M) and Cavaliers-Celtics (1.81M). Last Wednesday, Thunder-Pistons drew a 0.9 and 1.49 million, leading into Celtics-Nuggets at a 0.9 and 1.53 million \u2014 both up sharply from last year\u2019s equivalent doubleheader of Sixers-Knicks (1.0M) and Spurs-Rockets (880K).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not too long ago the marquee attraction in the NBA, Lakers-Warriors was the least-watched of the four NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,2520,2521,479,164,4025,4024,2525,2526,6,2528,1007,697,353,2531,2533,60107,68053,82224,2535,2536,255,2537],"class_list":["post-640157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golden-state-warriors","tag-basketball","tag-cavaliers-tv-ratings","tag-celtics-tv-ratings","tag-golden-state","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-goldenstate","tag-goldenstatewarriors","tag-knicks-tv-ratings","tag-lakers-tv-ratings","tag-nba","tag-nba-on-abc","tag-nba-on-espn","tag-nba-on-nbc","tag-nba-ratings","tag-nuggets-tv-ratings","tag-pistons-tv-ratings","tag-sixers-tv-ratings","tag-spurs-tv-ratings","tag-sunday-night-basketball-ratings","tag-thunder-tv-ratings","tag-timberwolves-tv-ratings","tag-warriors","tag-warriors-tv-ratings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116174515422843611","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640157","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=640157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}