{"id":717996,"date":"2026-06-06T01:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/717996\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T01:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:17:10","slug":"knicks-spurs-finals-begins-on-red-hot-viewership-pace-for-abc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/717996\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks-Spurs Finals Begins on Red-Hot Viewership Pace for ABC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe return of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/new-york-knicks\/\" id=\"auto-tag_new-york-knicks_1\" data-tag=\"new-york-knicks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Knicks<\/a> to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/nba\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nba_1\" data-tag=\"nba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a> Finals after nearly <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/business\/media\/2026\/nba-dream-finals-matchup-ratings-boom-wemby-knicksmania-1234902193\/\">30 years in the wilderness<\/a> coincided with the league\u2019s most-watched game since before the COVID-19 pandemic. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/abc\/\" id=\"auto-tag_abc_1\" data-tag=\"abc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABC<\/a>\u2019s coverage of Wednesday night\u2019s Game 1 averaged 16.93 million viewers, setting the tone for the series.<\/p>\n<p>The Knicks\u2019 105-95 victory over the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/san-antonio-spurs\/\" id=\"auto-tag_san-antonio-spurs_1\" data-tag=\"san-antonio-spurs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Antonio Spurs<\/a> nearly doubled last year\u2019s analogous Pacers-Thunder broadcast (8.91 million viewers), bettering that delivery by 90%. Per Nielsen, New York\u2019s win peaked at 19.63 million viewers in the 11 p.m.-11:15 p.m. ET quarter-hour.<\/p>\n<p>To further place the Game 1 deliveries in context, ABC\u2019s TV turnout beat Game 7 of the 2025 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/nba-finals\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nba-finals_1\" data-tag=\"nba-finals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA Finals<\/a> by some 580,000 viewers.<\/p>\n<p>All told, Wednesday\u2019s broadcast drew the NBA\u2019s largest audience since Game 6 of the 2019 Raptors-Warriors series averaged 18.59 million viewers.<\/p>\n<p>Media buyers this week said that the average unit cost for an in-game commercial in Friday night\u2019s game landed at some $800,000 per 30-second spot, and while scatter rates are significantly higher, much of the inventory was sold well before the playoffs got underway. That said, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportico.com\/t\/disney\/\" id=\"auto-tag_disney_1\" data-tag=\"disney\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Disney<\/a>\u2019s ad sales team is looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of a $60 million night when Game 2 tips off.<\/p>\n<p>Disney earlier this week confirmed that it has sold out all of the available guaranteed units in the Finals, but that some slots remain should the series proceed past Wednesday night\u2019s outing in New York. At last count, 42 advertisers had suited up for this year\u2019s installment of the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n<p>ABC\u2019s coverage of the Knicks-Spurs showdown\u00a0continues Friday night at 8:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The return of the New York Knicks to the NBA Finals after nearly 30 years in the wilderness&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":717997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[2086,49,48,3494,459,2087,2901,2696,82,221142,2088],"class_list":["post-717996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-abc","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-disney","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sports","tag-tv-advertising","tag-tv-ratings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717996","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=717996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}