While the NBA suffered mightily when it came to television ratings, it made up for it in the digital department.
More precisely, the league’s digital media views increased 17 percent over last season, according to Front Office Sports. Overall, in fact, the league set a record with 6.9 billion video views on social channels from the July 30 restart until the final game of the Finals on Oct. 11.
Along with that, per Front Office Sports, the NBA recorded 2.6 billion views on Instagram and 321 million YouTube views in the playoffs, including 61 million during the Finals.
What this indicates is that fans stayed in the touch with league happenings via highlights, as opposed to watching entire games.
As relayed by veteran sports media reporter Ryan Glasspiegel of Outkick, the Los Angeles’ Lakers title-winning series over the Miami Heat averaged just 7.45 million viewers for the six games, with Game 3 dipping to the all-time low of 5.94 million.
“The last time LeBron James played in the NBA Finals, in 2018 Cavs-Warriors, the games averaged 17.56 million viewers,” Glasspiegel wrote. “This year represents a 57.6% drop from that.”
Reports of the NBA’s viewership issues tended to focus on the season restart, but ratings had dropped 12 percent before the coronavirus pandemic suspended play in March, per reports.
