The NBA‘s in-season tournament accomplished exactly what the league was hoping when the initiative was announced this summer.
That is, it injected some excitement into the regular season and ginned up the NBA’s ratings in the process. The Los Angeles Lakers brought home the inaugural championship trophy on Saturday, as well as $500,000 for each player, after a 123-109 victory over the Indiana Pacers.
In return, the NBA raked in 4.58M viewers on ABC and ESPN2, making it the most-watched game during the regular season in nearly six years (since February 2018), excluding Christmas Day.
According to Nielsen, viewership peaked around 11 p.m. ET with nearly 5.7M viewers. The audience average was up 46% versus last year’s NBA Saturday Primetime on ABC season debut game between the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors, which would be the comparable window since the in-season tournament is new.
While the traditional broadcast for the tournament aired on ABC, the alternate broadcast featured a Manningcast-style showing of the game with host Kevin Hart. Airing on ESPN2, that telecast made up about 10% of the total audience.
The championship game was also available to stream on the NBA League Pass, where it was the most-engaged game ever. According to the NBA, viewers with League Pass tuned into at least 90 minutes of the matchup. Throughout the NBA In-Season Tournament, NBA League Pass daily average viewership was up 45% vs. the comparable time span last season.
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