Big ratings
bump for NBA playoffs
Opening games are well up from last year's playoffs
By Toni Fitzgerald
Apr 19, 2011
Following a record-breaking regular season, the National Basketball Association is on pace for a very strong postseason.
The NBA playoffs opened with ratings up double-digit percentages over last year for six of eight games, according to Nielsen overnight data analyzed by SportsBusinessDaily.
Saturday's game between the defending champ Los Angeles Lakers and the New Orleans Hornets drew the biggest rating of the weekend, a 4.6 among households on Sunday afternoon on ABC, up 12 percent from the Lakers' opening game last year.
ABC's Philadelphia 76ers-Miami Heat game was up 18.2 percent over last year's game, which also featured LeBron James, when he played for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Saturday's contest drew a 3.9 rating.
But it was cable that saw the largest year-to-year gains. TNT's New York Knicks-Boston Celtics game averaged a 4.3 rating, second-highest of the weekend, and surged 48.3 percent versus last year's 2.9 for the San Antonio Spurs-Dallas Mavericks.
And ESPN's game between the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder was up 54.5 percent over last year on TNT, while ESPN's Indiana Pacers-Chicago Bulls contest increased 55.6 percent.
Only two games, TNT's Memphis Grizzlies-Spurs game and ESPN's Atlanta Hawks-Orlando Magic contest, saw declines versus last year, down just over 10 percent between them.
There are several reasons for the big ratings to start the postseason, not the least of which is the involvement of big-market teams.
For the first time in two decades, the teams from the top five TV markets made the playoffs, including squads from New York and Philadelphia, two cities that have struggled in the NBA recently.
The interest in the regular season, when TNT had its best year of NBA coverage in 27 years, is also carrying over to the postseason. There are two big questions looming over this year's playoffs.
The first is whether Laker Kobe Bryant can equal Michael Jordan's feat of winning six championship rings and the second is whether James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh can deliver on the promise of their dream team to collect a championship for the Miami Heat.
Clearly both those things can't happen, and the best-case scenario for all three NBA carriers is that the Lakers and Heat meet in the NBA finals in June, which would surely pump ratings some more.
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