NBA's New Media Deal: A 18% Viewership Boost and a Younger Audience
The NBA is kicking off 2026 with impressive viewership numbers, up 18% from the previous year. This surge in popularity can be attributed to a combination of factors, including more games on broadcast TV and fewer on cable, along with a strong Christmas performance. Across ABC/ESPN, NBC, and Prime Video, the NBA is averaging a substantial 2.02 million viewers, surpassing the combined average of ABC/ESPN and TNT/truTV from the start of 2025.
Regional performance reveals a positive trend, with 17 out of 29 teams experiencing season-over-season growth. Interestingly, many of these teams are associated with Main Street Sports Group, which recently faced financial challenges, missing payments to several franchises.
NBC's coverage of the NBA has been particularly successful, attracting the largest NBA Tip-Off doubleheader audience in 15 years on October 21. The Coast 2 Coast Tuesday games, introduced on October 28, further enhanced the NBA's viewership, with the Knicks-Celtics game on December 2 becoming the best pre-Christmas audience for a Tuesday NBA game since 1996. NBC's Tuesday games are averaging a remarkable 2.9 million viewers, an 87% increase from the previous season.
ESPN and ABC are also performing well, with a 30% season-to-date increase in viewers, despite having fewer games on cable TV. The networks are averaging 2.53 million viewers, including ABC's Christmas games and a mix of midweek and weekend games on ESPN.
Prime Video's debut NBA season is attracting an average of 1.2 million viewers per game, with a 3% decrease compared to last season's national networks. However, Prime Video is witnessing a significant shift in audience demographics, with a 13% increase in viewers aged 18-34, a 20% increase in viewers aged 18-49, and a 17% increase in viewers aged 25-54. The Knicks-Spurs Emirates NBA Cup Final remains Prime Video's most-watched game, drawing 3.1 million viewers.
The NBA's overall audience in the U.S. has reached an unprecedented 115 million people, marking the highest figure for this metric at this stage of the season since records began in 2002. The combined viewership across NBC/Peacock, ESPN/ABC, Prime Video, and NBA TV is up 85% compared to the same period last year. Additionally, the NBA has generated an impressive 75 billion video views across social media platforms, a 32% increase from the previous season, according to Videocites data.
A notable trend is the younger audience on Prime Video, with the NBA's median age on this platform being 46.6 years, nearly eight years younger than the linear TV audience this season. This shift in demographics highlights the NBA's successful strategy of engaging a younger generation of fans through various media platforms.
