When the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers won conference championships, there was much speculation nationally that the NBA Finals would draw low television ratings because neither of the teams was from a top-20 TV market.
Those concerns turned out to be justified, but viewership for Oklahoma City's 103-91 victory in the decisive Game 7 on Sunday night provided the NBA and ESPN/ABC with some good news.
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Game 7 drew a 7.6 Nielsen rating and averaged 16.4 million viewers. That was the largest audience for an NBA Finals game since Toronto's clinching win over Golden State in 2019's Game 6. Maybe current Indiana player Pascal Siakam is a viewer favorite since he was a key player for Toronto in '19. Sunday's game peaked at 19.3 million viewers early in the second half when the score was close before the Thunder broke the game open.
But Sunday's rating was way below the last previous NBA Finals Game 7 in 2016 when Cleveland's win over Golden State received a 15.8 and averaged 31 million viewers. That was the third highest-viewed NBA Finals game of all-time, surpassed only by clinching Game 6s that featured Michael Jordan in 1998 and '93.
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Overall, it was the lowest-rated NBA Finals except for 2020 when they were played during football season due to COVID. This year's 5.1 rating narrowly trailed the 5.2 in 2021 when Milwaukee defeated Phoenix, but the number of viewers was slightly higher this year.
This year's highest-rated Finals game before the finale was Oklahoma City's win in Game 5. Viewership was incredibly consistent through the first six games with the ratings range only from 4.5 to 4.9.
The entire 2025 NBA postseason on ABC and ESPN averaged 6.12 million viewers per game, an increase of 10% over last year.
APTOPIX NBA Finals Pacers Thunder Basketball (copy)
Indiana's Pascal Siakam (43) defends Oklahoma City's Isaiah Hartenstein (55) during Sunday's Game 7. Siakam has played in the NBA's two highest-rated Finals games during the past seven years. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) Julio Cortez
barry.lewis@tulsaworld.com
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