{"id":763377,"date":"2026-06-17T14:03:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/763377\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T14:03:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:03:32","slug":"nba-finals-tv-ratings-finish-with-best-mark-since-1998","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/763377\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Finals TV Ratings Finish With Best Mark Since 1998"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/new-york-knicks\/\" id=\"auto-tag_new-york-knicks_1\" data-tag=\"new-york-knicks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Knicks<\/a>\u2018 first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/nba\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nba_1\" data-tag=\"nba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a> title in 53 years delivered the biggest audience for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/nba-finals\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nba-finals_1\" data-tag=\"nba-finals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA Finals<\/a> in 28 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tSaturday\u2019s deciding fifth game averaged 24.5 million viewers on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/abc\/\" id=\"auto-tag_abc_1\" data-tag=\"abc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABC<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/espn\/\" id=\"auto-tag_espn_1\" data-tag=\"espn\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN<\/a>, the third game in a row to draw more than 20 million. The last time the finals drew 20 million-plus viewers over three consecutive contests was in 2016, for the final three games of the Cleveland Cavaliers\u2019 comeback victory over the Golden State Warriors. The telecast was also the most watched game five since the 1998 NBA Finals, which marked Michael Jordan\u2019s last championship with the Chicago Bulls. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe series as a whole delivered 20.6 million viewers, the biggest audience for the NBA Finals since, once again, 1998 \u2014 which means it\u2019s also the best showing ever for the finals on ABC. The network took over rights to the NBA\u2019s championship series in 2003. (Nielsen has also made several changes to the way it measures ratings over that time, including adding out of home viewing and a big data component to its sample, both of which have been beneficial to live sports broadcasts.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tSaturday\u2019s telecast peaked with a huge 33 million viewers who watched the closing minutes of the Knicks\u2019 94-90 win over the San Antonio Spurs. Knicks guard Jalen Brunson was named MVP of the series after scoring 45 points, nearly half of the team\u2019s total, in game five.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe 2026 NBA Finals doubled last year\u2019s average of 10.27 million viewers. The last time the finals averaged 20 million viewers or more was in 2017 (20.38 million for the third of four straight Warriors-Cavs matchups).<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe Knicks hailing from the country\u2019s largest media market certainly helped boost numbers for the Finals, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/tv-ratings\/\" id=\"auto-tag_tv-ratings_1\" data-tag=\"tv-ratings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TV ratings<\/a> for the NBA were up across the board in the first season of a new media rights deal. Regular season games on ABC, ESPN, NBC\/Peacock and Prime Video grew by 16 percent year to year vs. ABC, ESPN and TNT Sports last season. The playoffs grew by double digits as well, averaging 5.3 million viewers across all rounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Knicks\u2018 first NBA title in 53 years delivered the biggest audience for the NBA Finals&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[611,7,130,6,1220,11,191,9695],"class_list":["post-763377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-abc","tag-basketball","tag-espn","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-tv-ratings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116765825694466842","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763377","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=763377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}