{"id":36885,"date":"2022-06-04T21:35:09","date_gmt":"2022-06-04T21:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/ratings-anemic-for-celtics-warriors-finals-opener\/"},"modified":"2022-06-04T21:35:09","modified_gmt":"2022-06-04T21:35:09","slug":"ratings-anemic-for-celtics-warriors-finals-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/ratings-anemic-for-celtics-warriors-finals-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Ratings anemic for Celtics-Warriors Finals opener"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Back in its normal time of year, and featuring a marquee matchup of Stephen Curry ‘<\/span>s Warriors against the storied Celtics, the NBA Finals got off to a less-than-impressive start.<\/p>\n

Thursday’s Celtics-Warriors NBA Finals Game 1 averaged a 6.4 rating and 11.9 million viewers across ABC (6.1, 11.4M) and ESPN2 (0.31, 501K), topping only the past two years as the lowest for the series opener since 2007 (Cavaliers- Spurs: 6.3, 9.21M). There was some dispute Friday as to whether the 11.4 million viewership figure for ABC was preliminary or final. 1<\/span><\/sup> Preliminary figures do not include out-of-home viewing and are thus subject to considerable upward adjustment.<\/p>\n

Pending any potential out-of-home lift, the Celtics’ comeback win declined 19% in ratings and 11% in viewership from Warriors-Raptors Game 1 in 2019, the previous Finals to take place June (7.9, 13.38M). It currently ranks as the lowest rated and least-watched Finals game involving Curry (29 telecasts), falling below Game 4 of the 2019 series (7.6, 12.79M).<\/p>\n

Ratings and viewership still easily surpassed the previous two Finals, both of which aired months out of season. Compared to Bucks-Suns in July last year, Game 1 increased 42% in ratings (from 4.5) and as much as 39% in viewership (from 8.56M *). Compared to two years ago – Heat-Lakers in a fanless bubble on the final day of September – ratings jumped 56% (from 4.1) and viewership as much as 57% (from 7.58M *). (* Viewership for the past two Finals is subject to revision due to Nielsen undercount of out-of-home viewing).<\/p>\n

Since the NBA returned from hiatus nearly two years ago, Game 1 would rank second among all games behind last year’s clinching Suns-Bucks Game 6 (6.6, 12.52M *).<\/p>\n

If a marked improvement over the past two years, Thursday’s Game 1 ratings would have to be considered a disappointment. Prior to 2019, 29-straight Finals games averaged at least a 9.0 rating and 56-straight averaged at least 14 million viewers. A Finals rating in the 6.0 range was the domain of the mid-2000s Spurs, whose annual defensive slogs plumbed the ratings depths. Far better numbers could have been expected for a series pitting the league’s biggest draw against its most storied franchise, both hailing from top-ten media markets.<\/p>\n

Then again, as strong as the NBA’s numbers have been at times this postseason, there were signs in recent weeks that the league’s momentum has slowed. Even last Sunday’s Celtics-Heat Game 7 was an underwhelming draw by historical standards, its mere 4.6 rating easily the lowest for a conference final Game 7 in the past 25 years. Out-of-home viewing made the audience figure look more respectable – nearly ten million – but even that was the smallest audience for a conference final Game 7 since 2005.<\/p>\n

It is still far too early to pronounce this year’s Finals a ratings dud. A long series can overcome a slow start; Raptors-Warriors three years ago opened at 13.38 million for Game 1 and finished at an average of 15.5 million due to a strong performance for Games 5 and 6. A Game 5, 6 and certainly 7 could render Thursday’s Game 1 underperformance a distant memory.<\/p>\n

If below expectations, Game 1 still averaged a 3.6 rating in adults 18-49, a 2.9 in 18-34 and a 4.0 in 25-54, television’s highest numbers in those demographics since the Kansas-Duke NCAA men’s basketball title game on Turner in April (4.7, 3.5 and 6.0).<\/p>\n

Game 1 also outdrew the opener of last year’s World Series, albeit a much lower-profile matchup of Atlanta and Houston (6.1, 10.93M *).<\/p>\n

1<\/span><\/sup> Final nationals for Game 1 (and all of Thursday’s broadcast network shows) had not been expected until Monday due to Nielsen’s typical holiday-week delays, but “arrived early” per ShowBuzz Daily<\/span>. The Hollywood Reporter, which also reported the 11.4 million figure, said the numbers were “preliminary” and do not include out-of-home viewing, but were “labeled as final ratings from two sources.” ESPN on Friday night maintained that the official numbers would not be available until Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

[NielsenestimatesfromProgrammingInsider63ShowBuzzDaily63[NielsenestimatesfromProgrammingInsider63ShowBuzzDaily63<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in its normal time of year, and featuring a marquee matchup of Stephen Curry ‘s Warriors against the storied Celtics, the NBA Finals got off to a less-than-impressive start. Thursday’s Celtics-Warriors NBA Finals Game 1 averaged a 6.4 rating and 11.9 million viewers across ABC (6.1, 11.4M) and ESPN2 (0.31, 501K), topping only the …<\/p>\n

Ratings anemic for Celtics-Warriors Finals opener<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.sportsmediawatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/finalslogo.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36885"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}