ESPN recently celebrated the good news that ratings for its NBA season opener were “up 95 percent.” Though, according to a report from Outkick, this claim lacks context which shows the ratings to be a bit less amazing than they appear.
On Wednesday, ESPN collaborated with the Associated Press on a piece claiming that the season opener was up 95 percent. The article claimed, “NBA viewers watched 81.5 million hours of live games on ABC, ESPN, and TNT in the opening week of the season, up 95% from opening week in 2019.”
However, the comparison between 2019 and 2020 is a bit misleading, Outkick reports. Due to the coronavirus, opening night this year was on December 23, only a few days before Christmas, whereas opening day in 2019 was at the end of October. The dates are hardly comparable, especially considering so many were at home due to restrictions over the virus or because they were off for Christmas.
As Outkick joked, “Congrats to the NBA for having more viewers on Friday, December 25, 2020, than it did on Friday, October 25, 2019, a time when the country was not locked down or home for Christmas.”
Outkick crunched the numbers and found the AP story lacking in year-over-year comparisons.
“The average viewership of the five games is down 16.5 percent from last year and 25.3 percent from two years ago. The marquee primetime game, Mavs-Lakers, was down 20.1 percent from last year and a whopping 32 percent from 2018, a game which featured LeBron and the Lakers versus the not-yet-depleted Warriors. Prior to 2018, the marquee Christmas Day NBA game was in the 5:00 pm ET window, rather than at night. This season’s marquee game had the lowest viewership since 2007, according to the historical ratings chart from Sports Media Watch.”
Amusingly, the AP story claims that the 2020 opening was the best since 2011. It turns out 2011’s opening day was Christmastime, as well.
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