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About a month into the 2025 season and the NBA is seeing promising returns on its new broadcast deals, as viewership is up 30% compared to last season. This year is the first that the NBA is being broadcast on NBC, Prime Video and ESPN under its new media rights deal.
According to reports, NBA regular season games are currently averaging 1.91 million viewers per contest through the first month of the season, which is a 30% increase on 2024 and the highest viewership that the NBA has had in its first month since 2017.
One of the things that basketball fans have liked most about the broadcasts put on by NBC and Prime Video is how seriously they’re taking its analysis of the sport in its pregame, halftime, and postgame shows.
NBC is also getting additional high marks for the nostalgia and pageantry they’ve infused their broadcasts with compared to previous broadcasters ESPN and TNT, who largely focused on the drama aspect of the sport.
NBA viewership has increased 30% compared to last season under new broadcast partnerships with NBA and Prime Video.
“NBA regular season games were averaging Nielsen-estimated 1.91 million viewers across NBCUniversal, ESPN and Amazon Prime Video through the first month of the season, a figure that includes Adobe Analytics for NBC games — up 30 percent from last year and the highest average for the first month of play since 2017. Including NBA TV, that increase rises to 52 percent,” Sports Media Watch reported.
Unfortunately for NBA fans, ESPN has not only retained a portion of the NBA’s broadcast rights but is also set to air the first and second round of the NBA Playoffs, the Conference Finals, and the NBA Finals, with Mike Breen, Tim Legler, Richard Jefferson set to be the network’s primary broadcast team.