On a day of March Madness matinees, the NBA\u2019s new media rights deal allowed it to capitalize on an unopposed primetime window.<\/p>\n
Last weekend\u2019s Knicks-Thunder NBA \u201cSunday Night Basketball\u201d game on NBC averaged a combined 3.4 million viewers across Nielsen (1.6, 3.07M) and Adobe Analytics, marking the largest NBA audience during March Madness in a decade \u2014 since Warriors-Spurs on ABC in 2016 (5.2M).<\/p>\n
The NBA is usually off of broadcast television for the entirety of the NCAA men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball tournaments, but the new \u201cSunday Night Basketball\u201d package allows the league to take advantage of an unopposed primetime window on Elite Eight Sunday, the only night of the men\u2019s tournament on which there are no competing primetime games.<\/p>\n
Not counting NBA TV, the last NBA game to air in that window was a Heat-Thunder NBA Finals preview on ESPN in 2012, which was the network\u2019s most-watched game of that season with 3.5 million. On the rare occasions ABC would air a game on Elite Eight Sunday, it would be in afternoon windows directly opposite college basketball \u2014 usually resulting in audiences at or near season-lows.<\/p>\n
(Note that Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, only began doing so in 100 percent of markets a year ago, and is mere months into a new methodology that combines its traditional panel with \u201cBig Data\u201d from smart TVs and set-top boxes. Those changes generally skew comparisons to past years.)<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City\u2019s win was the most-watched sporting event of the week outside of March Madness, topping each of the MLB Opening Week games. (Keep in mind that only one of those MLB games aired in primetime absent tournament competition, the Netflix-exclusive season opener<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The combined audience ranks as the highest for an NBA game this season since Celtics-Lakers on \u201cSunday Night Basketball\u201d in late February.<\/p>\n The Warriors-Nuggets nightcap averaged 3.0 million across Nielsen (1.3, 2.37M) and Adobe. Both games outdrew the previous week\u2019s Timberwolves-Celtics game on \u201cSunday Night Basketball,\u201d which averaged a combined 2.4 million (1.89M per Nielsen) opposite a full night of tournament games.<\/p>\n