The 2015 NBA Finals are off to a great start -- at least from a ratings perspective. Thursday’s opening game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors drew the highest Game 1 ratings ever on ABC with an overnight rating of 12.9, up 24 percent from last season’s Miami Heat-San Antonio Spurs series.
The 2015 NBA Finals drew the highest Game 1 ratings ever on ABC
A lot of people were watching Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
The impressive rating to start off the Finals is good news for the NBA, which has seen ratings decline for the past three years. The league’s three major carriers -- ABC, ESPN and TNT -- each reported this was their least-watched season of NBA basketball since 2007-08. The playoffs haven’t been kind to the NBA up to this point either, with 51 of 75 games declining from last year’s ratings entering the Finals.
Those might sound like troubling numbers, but the league insists it’s in good health with new TV money set to kick in soon. Despite a drop in ratings, the playoffs have still been the most-watched program on cable over the last month in the key 18-49 demographic. The NBA also compares well to the other three major sports in terms of ratings.
The game peaked with a 15.6 rating.
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