{"id":1495,"date":"2025-07-17T01:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T01:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/1495\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T01:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T01:28:07","slug":"nba-finals-game-7-draws-16m-viewers-for-abc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/1495\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Finals Game 7 Draws 16M Viewers for ABC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe first game seven of an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/nba\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nba_1\" data-tag=\"nba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a> Finals since 2016 delivered a big audience for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/abc\/\" id=\"auto-tag_abc_1\" data-tag=\"abc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABC<\/a> \u2014 and helped the series avoid some historic ratings lows. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe Oklahoma City Thunder\u2019s 103-91 win over the Indiana Pacers averaged 16.61 million viewers, according to same-day national figures from Nielsen (adjusted up a bit from 16.35 in preliminary numbers). It peaked at 19.58 million from 9:45-10 p.m. ET as the Thunder wrapped up their win. The 16.35 million viewers makes Sunday\u2019s contest the most-watched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/nba-finals\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nba-finals_1\" data-tag=\"nba-finals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA Finals<\/a> contest since 2019, when the last two games of that series each drew better than 18 million viewers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe big tune-in for game seven also helped ABC and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/espn\/\" id=\"auto-tag_espn_1\" data-tag=\"espn\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN<\/a> conclude the NBA playoffs on a high note \u2014\u00a0the two Disney networks\u2019 postseason slate (35 games) averaged 6.12 million viewers, up 10 percent from 2024. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThat\u2019s the good news. The downside is that, despite the turnout for Sunday\u2019s broadcast, the 2025 NBA Finals were among the least-watched of this century. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe seven-game series averaged 10.27 million viewers, of only 2003 (9.86 million viewers) and 2007 (9.29 million) Finals in their regular June window (the COVID-affected 2020 and \u201821 series, played later in the year, also had lower viewership). Prior to Sunday, none of the six Finals telecasts this year topped the 10 million-viewer mark. And even with the spike in viewers compared to the previous games, Sunday\u2019s contest is the least-watched game seven on record. The previous game seven low was 19 million viewers in 2005.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tA lot of that comes down to the fact that Oklahoma City and Indianapolis are two of the NBA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/tv\/tv-news\/tv-ratings-nba-finals-tony-awards-2025-1236261337\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">smaller markets<\/a>. The Thunder and Pacers also ranked 11th and 16th in national TV broadcasts in the 2024-25 regular season (including those on NBA TV), meaning casual fans were somewhat less likely to see them than they were the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics or Golden State Warriors. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tJune 24, 10:30 a.m. Updated with final ratings figures for game seven of the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first game seven of an NBA Finals since 2016 delivered a big audience for ABC \u2014 and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[2086,49,48,1161,459,2087,82,2088],"class_list":{"0":"post-1495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-abc","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-espn","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-finals","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tv-ratings"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}