The NBA continues to crawl out of the ratings hole it found itself in earlier this season.
According to a report from Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal, national NBA viewership is down 5% year-over-year, an improvement from where the league stood before Christmas Day, when it was down 19% year-over-year. Currently, the national average is 1.77 million viewers per game across ABC, ESPN, and TNT/truTV.
As one would expect given the insane NBA trade deadline earlier this month, February viewership is up double-digits over January viewership. No doubt, the Luka Dončić trade has reinvigorated people’s interest in the league so far this month. ESPN drew over 2 million viewers for his debut with the Los Angeles Lakers for a 10:30 p.m. ET tip-off on Monday.
ESPN and ABC seem to be faring a bit better than their colleagues over at TNT. So far, NBA viewership on the Disney-owned networks is relatively flat versus last year (down 1%), but TNT’s viewership has seen a 14% dip. SBJ points out that this essentially keeps pace with the 13% yearly decline in total cable viewership related to cord-cutting.
Locally, some teams have great success stories while others are struggling to maintain an audience for a variety of reasons both on and off the court.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have one of the better stories to tell. Year-over-year the team is up 57% in viewership, third-best in the league despite dwindling market penetration due to cord-cutting. No doubt, the team’s on-court success has been the primary driver in the increased viewership.
First in year-over-year growth is the Portland Trail Blazers, who have increased their audience by 69% after ditching their old RSN Root Sports Northwest, which was only available in about 20% of Portland homes. Now, the team is reaping the rewards of launching their own over-the-air platform Rip City Sports Network, along with a direct-to-consumer streaming service.
That strategy may not be as surefire a success as it seems, however. The Utah Jazz, who debuted their over-the-air plus direct-to-consumer combo last year, has seen a 44% decline local viewership, fourth-worst in the league. According to SBJ, “the novelty appears to be over” for viewing Jazz games for free over-the-air. Certainly, the underachieving on the court has not helped.
Local viewership, of course, is a completely different animal than national viewership, but still makes up approximately 55% of all NBA viewing, per SBJ.
Overall, the league’s losses feel far less dramatic than some were making them out to be earlier this season. In fact, the league is “beating the spread” so to say given the even more rapid decline in overall cable viewing.
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