NBA says viewership of regular-season games was up 86% over last season

NEW YORK (AP) - The numbers are in, and the NBA says Year 1 of its new television deals were a hit.

The league released numbers for the regular season on Wednesday, showing that 170 million people in the U.S. watched NBA games across the league's four primary broadcast platforms this year - those being ABC/ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, NBC/Peacock, and NBA TV.

Those numbers are the league's best in 24 years, the NBA said, plus represented an 86% rise over last season.

Prime Video was part of the league's television rights package for the first time this season and NBC/Peacock returned for the first time in a generation. The league signed a new 11-year, $76 billion-plus media rights deal in 2024 to show games on those two platforms along with ABC/ESPN and NBA TV.

Those deals kicked in at the start of this season.

Other highlights of the viewership numbers:

- NBA games across ABC/ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, NBC/Peacock and NBA TV had the the highest average viewership in 13 years, up 35% over last season.

- A total of 57 telecasts this season reached an average of 2 million viewers, the most since the 2011-12 season.

- People watched NBA games for more than 920 million hours, up 25% over last season and the most since 2011-12.

- The NBA's social media channels generated a record 228 billion views this season, according to Videocites. That's up 13% over last season.

- Attendance over the past three seasons in NBA arenas is higher than any three-season span in league history.

- Viewership for NBA Cup group play games was up 90% from last season.

- The audience for the All-Star Game on NBC, averaging 8.8 million viewers, was the largest for the league's midseason showcase event since 2011.