The series finished as the most-watched NBA Finals since Michael Jordan capped his “Last Dance” with the Chicago Bulls in 1998, according to ESPN PR.
This year’s Finals averaged 20.6 million viewers, a 100% increase in viewership from last year’s championship series, which saw the Oklahoma City Thunder outlast the Indiana Pacers in seven games, per ESPN. For reference, as reported by Sports Media Watch, Jordan’s Bulls defeating the Utah Jazz in six games in ’98 drew an average of a whopping 29.04 million viewers. That year, of course, Jordan collected his sixth ring, cementing his case as the NBA’s GOAT.
The 2026 NBA Finals set an ABC and ESPN audience record, according to ESPN, which cited Nielsen. It’s important to note that Nielsen shifted to a new methodology last fall that couples its traditional panel with “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes. Plus, Nielsen didn’t begin factoring in out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020 and started doing so in 100% of markets only a year ago, according to Sports Media Watch.
Nevertheless, the numbers this year’s Finals did are still undoubtedly monumental.