NBA touts near doubling of television viewership

NEW YORK -- The numbers are in, and the NBA says Year 1 of its new television deals were a hit.

The league released numbers for the regular season Wednesday showing that 170 million people in the U.S. watched NBA games across the league's four primary broadcast platforms: ABC/ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, NBC/Peacock and NBA TV.

Those numbers are the league's best in 24 years, the NBA said, and represented an 86% rise over last season.

Prime Video was part of the NBA's television rights package for the first time this season, and NBC/Peacock returned for the first time in a generation. The league signed a new 11-year, $76 billion-plus media rights deal in 2024 that kicked in at the start of this season.

Other highlights of the viewership numbers:

• NBA games across ABC/ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, NBC/Peacock and NBA TV had the highest average viewership in 13 years, up 35% over last season.

• A total of 57 telecasts reached an average of 2 million viewers, the most since 2011-12.

• People watched NBA games for more than 920 million hours, up 25% over last season and the most since 2011-12.

• The NBA's social media channels generated a record 228 billion views, according to Videocites. That's up 13% over last season.

• Attendance over the past three seasons in NBA arenas is higher than any three-season span in league history.

• Viewership for NBA Cup group play games was up 90%.

• The audience for the All-Star Game on NBC, averaging 8.8 million viewers, was the largest for the league's midseason showcase event since 2011.