{"id":708468,"date":"2026-06-17T00:15:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/708468\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T00:15:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:15:25","slug":"knicks-historic-title-run-scores-best-nba-finals-audience-since-1998","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/708468\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks\u2019 Historic Title Run Scores Best NBA Finals Audience Since 1998"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/new-york-knicks\/\" id=\"auto-tag_new-york-knicks\" data-tag=\"new-york-knicks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Knicks<\/a>\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2026\/06\/knicks-win-nba-championship-2026-1236955838\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">historic NBA championship run<\/a> drove some of the biggest television audiences the league Finals has seen in decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tSaturday\u2019s Game 5 averaged 24.5M viewers across <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/abc\/\" id=\"auto-tag_abc\" data-tag=\"abc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABC<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/espn\/\" id=\"auto-tag_espn\" data-tag=\"espn\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN<\/a>, per Nielsen Big Data + Panel, marking the most-watched <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/nba\/\" id=\"auto-tag_nba\" data-tag=\"nba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a> Finals game since 1998, when Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls won their sixth title in eight seasons. It peaked with 33M viewers in the final moments of the game as the Knicks sealed a victory.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tRelated Stories\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a tabindex=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2026\/06\/trump-booed-new-york-knicks-nba-finals-1236950983\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Zohran-Mamdani-Spike-Lee-and-Donald-Trump.jpg\" alt=\"Zohran Mamdani, Spike Lee and Donald Trump\" data-lazy- data-lazy- height=\"\" width=\"\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a tabindex=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2026\/06\/new-york-knicks-nba-title-wfan-radio-audacy-1236954701\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/WFAN.jpg\" alt=\"New York Knicks\" data-lazy- data-lazy- height=\"\" width=\"\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tAnd, in fact, the entire series was a slam dunk, driving the highest average viewership since 1998 as well. Across five games, ABC and ESPN saw an average 20.6M viewers tune in. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe games clearly dominated television (and the collective consciousness), especially once the Knicks were poised to upset the San Antonio Spurs for the team\u2019s first title in 53 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tPer Nielsen, the Finals were generating the largest viewing audience of the day across all of television and in every key male and adult demo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Knicks\u2019 historic NBA championship run drove some of the biggest television audiences the league Finals&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[1855,352,355,361,99,9611],"class_list":["post-708468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-abc","tag-espn","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-sports","tag-tv-ratings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}