The NBA’s opening week averaged 2.8 million viewers across national games on NBC, Peacock, ESPN, and Amazon Prime Video—the league’s most-watched start in eight years—driven by a 90% surge in the Oct. 21 NBC/Peacock doubleheader (5.6 million viewers) and boosted by Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel metrics plus Adobe Analytics for NBC.
The numbers mark the debut of the NBA’s 11-year, $77 billion media rights deal. Prime Video’s first Friday games drew 1.25 million viewers, up 13% year-over-year from ESPN’s prior slot, while ESPN averaged 2.2 million across four games—its second-best opening week since 2014.
Key context: The Knicks-Celtics opener fueled most growth (up 41% vs. last year’s Knicks-Pacers), though both games overlapped the World Series; last year’s Yankees appearance likely suppressed New York NBA viewership more than this year’s matchup.
Social media underscored the momentum, with NBA platforms amassing 2.1 billion views—the highest for any opening week.