LeBron James versus Steph Curry?

It seems like many of you were interested in watching that.

Wednesday night’s 115-113 thriller between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors drew a massive 7,763,000 viewers in primetime on ABC, according to Nielsen. It was the most-watched NBA regular season game in five years and up 499 percent from the comparable game last year (Philadelphia versus Miami).

The 2024 Lakers-Warriors game peaked with 8.324 million viewers at 10:30 p.m. ET.

Given last year’s desultory viewership numbers for Christmas Day — the 2023 five-game NBA Christmas Day schedule averaged just 2.85 million viewers across ABC/ESPN against NFL competition — this year’s NBA schedule on Christmas was bound to increase over last year. But what really bolstered this year’s viewing was increased programming windows on ABC, compelling games and no primetime NFL game. Per Sports Media Watch, 2024 was just the second year in which all five Christmas games aired on ABC.

All of these factors led to the NBA’s Christmas games on Wednesday averaging 5.25 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, Disney+ and ESPN+. It is the most-watched NBA Christmas in five years, according to Nielsen, and puts NBA viewership across ESPN platforms up four percent over last season as of this writing.

As for the viewership of the other Christmas Day games:

• The noon game between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks averaged 4.913 million viewers. which, according to Nielsen data, was the most-watched opening game on Christmas in 13 years.
• The Minnesota Timberwolves-Dallas Mavericks game averaged 4.382 million viewers, while the Phoenix Suns-Denver Nuggets averaged 3.84 million viewers in the late window.
• The Philadelphia 76ers’ win over the Boston Celtics averaged 5.161 million viewers.

The final audience for the Sixers-Celtics game and the full day will increase because the viewership from the Boston market remains incomplete, according to Nielsen.

All in all, a very good day for the NBA.

Required reading

(Photo: Noah Graham / NBAE via Getty Images)