This week, the league claimed the Spurs-Thunder series was the "most-watched conference finals in 24 years," averaging 10.8 million viewers per game across NBC and Peacock.Twenty-four years, huh?For context, the last time the NBA aired conference finals games on NBC was in 2002 — exactly 24 years ago.Since then, conference finals broadcasts have aired primarily on cable, either ESPN or TNT.Just how significant the advantage of broadcast television is over cable became clear during this year's conference finals.Neither the Spurs nor the Thunder has traditionally drawn particularly well on a national level because of their market sizes.
Yet the Western Conference Finals averaged roughly three million more viewers per game than the Eastern Conference Finals, despite the New York Knicks reaching the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.Granted, the Western Conference Finals went seven games, while the Knicks swept Cleveland, which certainly affected the overall averages.Still, the fact that teams from Oklahoma City and San Antonio outdrew a New York team making a historic Finals run is telling.New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns and teammates celebrate after winning Game 4 in the Eastern Conference finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Cleveland on May 25, 2026.
(Tim Phillis/AP)In addition to returning to NBC this season, the NBA has also benefited from changes to Nielsen's measurement system.Since Nielsen introduced its Big Data + Panel methodology, live sports viewership has increased by roughly 10%.Notice that the fanboys mindlessly regurgitating the NBA's press release never mention those details.
Nor do they question one particularly curious aspect of the league's reporting: Peacock.NBC says Game 7 of Spurs-Thunder averaged 3.23 million viewers on Peacock, a streaming audience "tracked by Adobe Analytics."What exactly does that mean?According to industry insiders, those figures are self-reported by NBC.No one is suggesting the network is fabrica...