{"id":762881,"date":"2026-06-16T23:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T23:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/762881\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T23:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T23:36:17","slug":"knicks-historic-title-run-scores-best-nba-finals-audience-since-1998","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/762881\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks\u2019 Historic Title Run Scores Best NBA Finals Audience Since 1998"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/new-york-knicks\/\" id=\"auto-tag_new-york-knicks\" data-tag=\"new-york-knicks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Knicks<\/a>\u2019 historic NBA Championship run drove some of the biggest television audiences the league Finals has seen in decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tSaturday\u2019s Game 5 averaged 24.5M viewers across <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/abc\/\" id=\"auto-tag_abc\" data-tag=\"abc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABC<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/espn\/\" id=\"auto-tag_espn\" data-tag=\"espn\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN<\/a>, per Nielsen Big Data + Panel, marking the most-watched NBA Finals game since 1998. It peaked with 33M viewers in the final moments of the game as the Knicks sealed a victory. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tAnd, in fact, the entire series was a slam dunk, driving the highest average viewership since 1998 as well. Across five games, ABC and ESPN saw an average 20.6M viewers tune in. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe games have clearly been dominating television (and the collective consciousness), especially once the Knicks appeared poised to unexpectedly defeat the San Antonio Spurs for the team\u2019s first title in 53 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tPer Nielsen, the Finals were generating the largest viewing audience of the day across all of television and in every key male and adult demo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Knicks\u2019 historic NBA Championship run drove some of the biggest television audiences the league Finals&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[611,7,130,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,9695],"class_list":["post-762881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-knicks","tag-abc","tag-basketball","tag-espn","tag-knicks","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkknicks","tag-tv-ratings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116762416490101816","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762881","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=762881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}