when the games coincided with Easter Sunday and viewership hit a 25-year high<\/a> \u2014 but the second-most watched opening weekend of the postseason since 2011.<\/p>\nThe four Sunday games \u2014 all of which aired on broadcast television \u2014 averaged 4.87 million, actually up a hair from last year\u2019s Easter Sunday slate, which included two non-exclusive games on cable (4.86M).<\/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 will generally skew historical comparisons, and account for the close proximity to last year\u2019s holiday-boosted figures.<\/p>\n
In its first NBA postseason since 2002, NBC delivered the top sports audience of the weekend with Trail Blazers-Spurs Game 1 Sunday night. San Antonio\u2019s win, which marked the playoff debut of Victor Wembanyama, averaged a combined 5.73 million viewers across Nielsen (2.6, 4.72M) and Adobe Analytics \u2014 up 35% from a Nielsen-only 4.24 million for last year\u2019s non-exclusive Warriors-Rockets on TNT. (Wembanyama was concussed in Tuesday\u2019s Game 2 and his status for the remainder of the series was not clear as of Wednesday.)<\/p>\n
Magic-Pistons led in with a combined 5.0 million (2.2 rating, 4.24M per Nielsen), up 24% from last year\u2019s Nielsen-only 4.02 million for Heat-Cavaliers on TNT. (NBC\u2019s position is that because Nielsen does not track its streaming viewership, its combined Nielsen + Adobe audience figures are comparable to the Nielsen-only figures of other networks.)<\/p>\n
ABC had the top Nielsen-measured audience of the weekend, as Saturday\u2019s Rockets-Lakers Game 1 drew a 2.4 and 5.21 million \u2014 down 11% in viewership from Timberwolves-Lakers last year (5.84M).<\/p>\n
The network also posted declines for its lopsided Sunday doubleheader. Oklahoma City\u2019s 35-point rout of Phoenix averaged a 2.4 and 4.61 million and the Celtics\u2019 32-point blowout of the Sixers drew a 2.2 and 4.19 million \u2014 marking viewership declines of 31 and 6 percent respectively from last year\u2019s pairing of Magic-Celtics (6.69M) and Grizzlies-Thunder (4.45M).<\/p>\n
In the first-ever streaming-exclusive playoff games, Prime Video averaged 3.14 million for its Saturday tripleheader \u2014 down 6% from last year\u2019s equivalent ESPN tripleheader, which was non-exclusive. As is typical for sports on streaming services, viewership fared far better versus last year among younger audiences, rising 12, 18 and 16 percent respectively in the demographics of 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54.<\/p>\n
Hawks-Knicks Game 1 topped the charts with a 1.9 rating and 3.97 million viewers \u2014 down 4% in viewership from Pistons-Knicks on ESPN last year (4.12M). Timberwolves-Nuggets led in with a 1.6 and 3.49 million, also down 4% from last year\u2019s Clippers-Nuggets opener (3.64M).<\/p>\n
Raptors-Cavaliers was a far weaker link, as one might expect given the matchup. Cleveland\u2019s easy win drew a 1.0 and 1.95 million, down 22% from Bucks-Pacers a year ago (2.51M).<\/p>\n
The modest decline for Prime Video came on the heels of a double-digit increase for its Play-in Tournament coverage. The full six-game Play-in Tournament averaged 2.79 million, up 18% from last year on ESPN and TNT (2.38M), with viewership in 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 up 35, 34 and 29 percent respectively. Note that unlike last year\u2019s first round playoff games on cable, which coexisted with local RSN coverage, the Play-in Tournament has always been exclusive to national TV.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s Warriors-Suns elimination game averaged 3.65 million, up 45% from Mavericks-Grizzlies on ESPN last year (2.51M). Orlando\u2019s rout of Charlotte led in with 2.37 million, still up 11% from last year\u2019s 2.13 million for Heat-Hawks on TNT.<\/p>\n
Prime aired nine-straight windows to start the postseason between the Play-in Tournament and the start of the playoffs. Five increased (all in the Play-in) and four declined compared to last year\u2019s linear windows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If off from last year\u2019s high, the NBA Playoffs got off to one of its better starts of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,2520,28818,2525,2526,2527,6,2528,697,2620,2530,11,353,2533,68052,2534,68053,68054,2535],"class_list":{"0":"post-716286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers-tv-ratings","10":"tag-hawks-tv-ratings","11":"tag-knicks-tv-ratings","12":"tag-lakers-tv-ratings","13":"tag-magic-tv-ratings","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nba-on-abc","16":"tag-nba-on-nbc","17":"tag-nba-on-prime-video","18":"tag-nba-playoff-ratings","19":"tag-nba-playoffs","20":"tag-nba-ratings","21":"tag-pistons-tv-ratings","22":"tag-raptors-tv-ratings","23":"tag-rockets-tv-ratings","24":"tag-spurs-tv-ratings","25":"tag-suns-tv-ratings","26":"tag-thunder-tv-ratings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116451425907101523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716286","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=716286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}