{"id":716292,"date":"2026-04-23T01:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716292\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T01:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:36:18","slug":"opening-sunday-of-nba-playoffs-registers-largest-audience-in-15-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716292\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Sunday of NBA Playoffs registers largest audience in 15 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2173761\" class=\"wp-image-2173761 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages_jaylenbrown_sunday.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2173761\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Celtics and 76ers set the stage for a busy NBA Playoff Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/playoffs\/2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA Playoffs<\/a> are delivering huge audiences.<\/p>\n<p>The opening Sunday of the NBA Playoffs, which featured four games and stars like Oklahoma City\u2019s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and San Antonio\u2019s Victor Wembanyama, reached more than 35 million viewers in the USA across ABC and NBC\/Peacock.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The opening Sunday of the NBA Playoffs delivered strong viewership across ABC and NBC\/Peacock:<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfc0 More than 35 million viewers in the U.S., the most in 15 years and up 65% vs. last season.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfc0 4.87 million average viewers, the highest in 15 years. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/DnA8YMAThc\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/DnA8YMAThc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA Communications (@NBAPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBAPR\/status\/2047110615106228652?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">April 23, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>That total was the highest reached in 15 years, and it was up 65% from last year. The games also reached an average of 4.87 million viewers, the highest in 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>Viewers who tuned in saw the Boston Celtics take Game 1 from the Philadelphia 76ers by a 123-91 score and then defending champion Oklahoma City beat Phoenix 119-84. The big surprise of the day came when No. 8 seed Orlando took a 112-101 victory over Detroit in Game 1; Wembanyama\u2019s Spurs beat Portland 111-98 in the final game of the day.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Celtics and 76ers set the stage for a busy NBA Playoff Sunday. The NBA Playoffs are delivering&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,11,6685],"class_list":{"0":"post-716292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-nba-playoffs","11":"tag-viewership"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116451462106293364","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716292","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=716292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}