NBC's 'Sunday Night Basketball' Makes a Strong Comeback, Surpassing Ratings and Viewership
But here's where it gets interesting: NBC's 'Sunday Night Basketball' saw a significant boost in viewership during its second edition, which aired alongside the Winter Olympics. The game between the Celtics and Lakers averaged a 2.5 rating and 4.52 million viewers on NBC, with the total audience reaching 5.6 million when including the Telemundo simulcast and streaming viewers.
This marks a dramatic increase compared to the equivalent Sunday night last year, when ESPN's Grizzlies-Cavaliers and Thunder-Timberwolves games averaged only 1.73 and 1.48 million viewers, respectively. The combined audience is the largest for a regular-season NBA game, excluding Christmas and Opening Night, since the Warriors-Thunder game in February 2017, which drew 6.04 million viewers.
The game's success can be attributed to its strategic placement during the Olympics, as it aired between NBC's live and encore presentations of the Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony. The direct lead-in was from the network's 'Milan Gold' Olympic recap special, which likely drew in viewers interested in Olympic content.
And this is the part most people miss: Boston's easy win outperformed both games of NBC's 'Sunday Night Basketball' debut on February 1, with the Lakers-Knicks game averaging 4.5 million viewers and the Thunder-Nuggets game averaging 2.9 million. This makes the Celtics-Lakers game the fifth-largest audience of the NBA season, behind only the opening night Rockets-Thunder game and three Christmas Day games on ESPN/ABC.
NBC's strong showing continues its resurgence in the NBA, as it now owns four of the top eight NBA audiences, and six of the top ten if including the NBA All-Star Game and NBA All-Star Saturday. Even on an NBC-only, Nielsen-only basis, 'Sunday Night Basketball' was the most-watched non-Olympic sportscast of the weekend, outperforming the NASCAR Cup Series race from Atlanta on FOX.
Earlier in the day, ABC averaged 1.7 and 2.95 million viewers for the Nuggets-Warriors game, which saw a slight increase in ratings and viewership compared to last year's Mavericks-Warriors game. The Cavaliers-Thunder game led in with 2.09 million viewers, down 7% from a larger-market matchup of Knicks-Celtics a year ago.
Now, here's a thought-provoking question for you: What impact did the Olympics have on NBC's 'Sunday Night Basketball' ratings, and could this be a sustainable strategy for the network moving forward?
