according to Nielsen\u2019s Big Data + Panel and Adobe Analytics<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe previous NBA Tip-Off doubleheader record was 5.7 million viewers in 2010 on TBS and TNT, which marked LeBron James\u2019 Miami Heat debut against the Celtics. Clearly, anytime you can showcase James\u2019s first game with a new team, it has paid off.<\/p>\n
The 76ers\u2019 106-100 win over the Knicks was the league\u2019s most-watched primetime opening-night game ever, averaging 7.71 million viewers and peaking at 9.1 million at 9:45 p.m. ET. That\u2019s up 32% from last year\u2019s early primetime game (5.9 million for Rockets-Thunder) and up 5% from the previous high of 7.3 million for Miami Heat-Boston Celtics in 2010 on TBS and TNT. The appeal of the Knicks celebrating their first championship since 1973, coupled with James\u2019s Philly debut, made for a no-brainer ratings win.<\/p>\n
Thunder-Spurs averaged 4.8 million viewers, making it the second most-watched late primetime NBA Tip-Off game ever, behind last year\u2019s Golden State Warriors-Los Angeles Lakers game on NBC and Peacock (5.1 million).<\/p>\n
The primetime games were helped out by a strong showing from the NBA Tip-Off afternoon game lead-in. The Celtics-Pistons matchup averaged 2.5 million viewers, despite complaints that some viewers\u2019 local affiliates weren\u2019t showing the game on the main NBC channel<\/a>. NBC says that makes it the most-watched weekday afternoon regular-season game outside of a holiday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBC wanted to eventize NBA Tip-Off and get audiences excited for the start of another NBA season. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":891527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,3013,51986,179989,133580,361,6402,2113,2116,92],"class_list":["post-891526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-lebron-james","tag-nba-on-nbc","tag-nba-ratings","tag-nba-tip-off","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891526","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=891526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}