Spurs-Knicks beats out Warriors-Cavaliers from 2017 as ABC/ESPN's best NBA Finals Game 3 yet. GETTY IMAGES
Spurs-Knicks delivered 23.8 million viewers on ABC/ESPN on Monday night, marking the best NBA Finals Game 3 since Bulls-Jazz in 1998 drew 25.7 million on NBC. It’s easily a Game 3 record for ABC/ESPN, which started airing the NBA Finals in 2003. ABC’s previous high for a Game 3 was 20.1 million for Warriors-Cavaliers back in 2017. The audience on Monday included a **Pat McAfee**\-led alt-cast on ESPN, which averaged 1.1 million viewers on its own, marking the most-viewed NBA alt-cast on record. That audience is just shy of the 1.2 million that McAfee’s Field Pass alt-cast drew on ESPN2 for the Indiana-Miami CFP National Championship back in January. Spurs-Knicks on Monday peaked at 26.3 million viewers at 11:15pm ET. The game itself was also up 159% from Thunder-Pacers Game 3 in 2025.
The NBA Finals are averaging 19.1 million viewers after three games, marking the second-best NBA Finals yet for ABC/ESPN through that period, behind only 19.5 million for that Warriors-Cavs series in 2017.