The surprise midseason trade of Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers provided a ratings boost to … More
The 2024-25 NBA regular season ended with the national television networks (TNT, ESPN and ABC) averaging 1.53 million viewers, a year-over-year fall-off of 2% from last season’s average of 1.56 million viewers.
Although the viewing to regular season games have been fairly consistent in recent years, the viewing was the lowest since the pandemic year of 2021 when the average audience was 1.39 million. When the audience for league owned (and lower rated) NBA TV is included, the average audience was 1.04 million, a year-over-year decline of 5% from 2023-24 (1.09 million).
In the past year, the audience for other live premium sports also recorded declines in viewing. For example, the year-over-year drop-off was identical to the loss of -2% of the 2024 NFL regular season. This season the average audience for NHL games dropped year-over-year by 13%, college basketball dipped by 7% and college football fell by 8%.
When broken out by network TNT had an average audience of 1.25 million viewers. a fall-off of 8% compared to the previous year. ESPN’s telecasts averaged 1.32 million viewers, a year-over-year fall-off 7%. Part of the decline for both networks can be attributed to consumers continuing to drop their cable subscription. On the other hand, the average audience for broadcaster ABC, grew by 10% averaging 2.68 million viewers. NBA TV viewing dropped by 24% averaging 250,000 viewers.
Starting with the 2025-26 season, the NBA will have a new 11-year media rights agreement valued at $77 billion. With the new agreement, the NBA has dropped TNT as a media partner. TNT had been televising NBA games since 1988. Beginning next season, the NBA will be relying primarily on the more widely distributed broadcast television (ABC and NBC) as well as streaming providers (Amazon Prime Video and Peacock). ESPN will be the only national cable outlet carrying NBA games.
At the onset of the 2024-25 season ratings were sluggish. It wasn’t until Christmas Day when ratings picked up. On Christmas, ABC aired five games which averaged 5.3 million viewers, a 87% increase from previous year’s slate of games which delivered an all-time low 2.85 million viewers. Additionally, it was the most watched roster of NBA games on Christmas since 2019. The five games all ranked among the ten most watched games of the NBA season. The top-rated game (L.A. Lakers vs. Golden State) averaged 7.91 million viewers, the most watched regular season game of the season.
On Christmas, Netflix streamed an NFL doubleheader averaging a U.S. audience of 24 million viewers. The previous year the NFL aired a Christmas Day tripleheader which averaged 29 million viewers all airing on broadcast television. In 2025, with Christmas falling on Thursday, Netflix will, once again, stream an NFL doubleheader and in primetime Amazon Prime Video will stream an NFL Thursday Night Football game.
Another ratings boost came with the surprise trade of Luka Dončić on February 2,. According to Sports Media Watch, regular season games in the aftermath of the trade deadline had been up 16% compared to early season games. (Also, on February 3, Nielsen announced they had expanded their out-of-home measurement to 100% of U.S. contiguous homes, up from 66%.)
According to Sportico, nine of 20 most watched regular season games in 2024-25 involved the L.A. Lakers. Six of the top 20 telecasts featured the Golden State Warriors. Both the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks accounted for five of the 20 most watched telecasts.
John Ourand of Puck found after analyzing local TV ratings for 25 of the 30 NBA franchises, that viewing had overall, dropped by an average of 13%. Similar to national TV ratings, a primary reason was cord-cutting that impacted the subscriber counts of regional sports networks.
Among the clubs with the largest drop-off in viewers include the Chicago Bulls which declined by -62%. The sharp fall-off was attributed to Comcast not adding the RSN Chicago Sports Network to their channel lineup. Other teams with a noticeable fall-off in local viewers include the Atlanta Hawks at 53% and Miami Heat at 52%. The Utah Jazz (at 44%) and Phoenix Suns (at 23%) also saw a sharp decline in viewers. Both franchises had dropped their RSN prior to the 2023-24 season for a combination of free local broadcast television and streaming.
Conversely, the audience for the Cleveland Cavaliers grew by 60%. Cleveland is the top seeded team in the Eastern Conference. In the western conference, the second seeded Houston Rockets recorded a 45% increase from last season. The Portland Trail Blazers, which left its RSN Root Sports for a local broadcast television, more than doubled its audience.
According to Ad EnGage, for the 2024-25 regular season, the NBA generated $636.6 million in national TV ad dollars, comparable to the $648.1 million in 2023-24. The report found TNT/truTV led in ad revenue with $281.1 million (11,260 ads), followed by ESPN/ESPN2 with $189 million (16,250 airings). ABC’s ad revenue totaled $160.1 million (2,0110 airings). Among product categories, QSR’s led in ad spending at $47.1 million, followed by automobiles at $37.7 million and home/auto insurance at $31.8 million.
With the new contract starting in 2025-26, NBA games will be available nationwide every night of the week. Peacock will stream a doubleheader on Monday. NBC stations will air games on Tuesday. ESPN will continue to televise games on Wednesday. After the NFL season concludes, Prime Video will showcase a game every Thursday. Prime will also stream a doubleheader on Friday. Saturday night games will once again air on ABC. At the end of the NFL season, NBC will be televising NBA games on Sunday.
